Bell, Don

ORAL HISTORY OF DON BELL
Interviewed by Don Hunnicutt
Filmed by BBB Communications, LLC.
November 5, 2013
MR. HUNNICUTT: This interview is for the Center of Oak Ridge Oral History. The date is November 5, 2013. I am Don Hunnicutt in the studio of BBB Communications, LLC. 170 Randolph Road, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to take an oral history from Mr. Don Bell, 100 Panama Road, Oak Ridge Tennessee, about living in Oak Ridge. Don, please state your full name, place of birth, and date.
MR. BELL: My name is Don Alan Bell. And I reside at 100 Panama Road here in Oak Ridge. And I was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, on September 16 of 1955.
MR. HUNNICUTT: State your father’s name and place of birth and the date, if you recall.
MR. BELL: My father was named Harold Lee Bell. And he was born September 12, 1923, in Corinth, Mississippi.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Your mother’s maiden name and place of birth and date.
MR. BELL: My mother’s name was Mary Marie Hathcock Bell. And she was also born in Corinth, Mississippi, in January of 1928.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What are the names of your grandparents on your father’s side?
MR. BELL: My father’s side is William Mitchell Bell. And he is also from Corinth, Mississippi. And my grandmother is Edna Clyde Bell, also born in Corinth, Mississippi.
MR. HUNNICUTT: On your mother’s side of the family –
MR. BELL: Eller J. Hathcock was my mother’s mother and William Odell Hathcock was her father.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember what either one of your grandfathers did for a living?
MR. BELL: Yes. My grandfather on my mother’s side ran an Army surplus store in Corinth, Mississippi, for many years. He also had worked as a pharmacist in Tyler, Texas, at one time. But he retired doing the Army surplus work in Corinth.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me a little bit about your father’s school history.
MR. BELL: My father attended Corinth High School. I think he graduated in 1941. He went into the Army Air Corps and served during World War II. I think he served the duration of the war, which was a couple years plus six months. He was a gunner instructor stateside during the war down in Biloxi, Mississippi, where he was located. He served in Germany for the duration of the war and came back to the United States after that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall where your father met your mother?
MR. BELL: Yes, in Corinth. He had dated her previous to going into the service. He knew about her and dated her a little bit. He always knew that that was the woman that he wanted to marry. When he got out of the service, he went home. And they got married pretty soon after that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you have any sisters and brothers?
MR. BELL: I have two older brothers. I have Greg Bell that worked at Y-12 here in Oak Ridge and just retired. I have another brother that’s two years older: Dennis Bell, he’s a nuclear engineer. And he worked at a lot of the plants – Savannah River, in Richland, Washington. He is also retired and lives in Knoxville, Tennessee.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Why did your parents come to Oak Ridge?
MR. BELL: My grandfather came here by himself. There wasn’t many jobs to be had during that time in the South. Most people had to leave to get a good job. I think they ran ads in the local papers throughout the South. He had worked up in Seattle, Washington in the aircraft factory. He had worked in numerous places throughout the country. But a good job was hard to find. I think he was hired in 1944 and worked at the powerhouse at K-25, here in Oak Ridge.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall how the family got to Oak Ridge?
MR. BELL: I think my dad actually drove my grandfather up here to get the job – or some of my relatives did. I don’t know if it was my father. Transportation was hard to find at that time. He might’ve even taken the train. I don’t recall. But he got here and didn’t bring the family up here. He thought it was temporary. His wife and my aunts also stayed down in Mississippi during that time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How long did your grandfather work at the powerhouse in K-25?
MR. BELL: That was his total duration of his work time at K-25. He worked there from 1944. His retirement date at K-25 is November 1, 1962.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you know what his job duties were?
MR. BELL: They didn’t talk much. I know Daddy said he was a millwright. And I’m not familiar with a lot of that type a work. But it was with his hands. He was just a hard working-type guy. They had also owned a country store in Corinth. He had done a lot of different things. Like I said, he did have a trade. He was qualified to come up here and – like I say, a good job was really difficult to find during that time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: This was your grandfather.
MR. BELL: This is my grandfather on my father’s side.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When did your father come to Oak Ridge?
MR. BELL: My father came up here. I think my aunts – Daddy’s two sisters – had come up here during that same time. And Dad came up in 1953 and got a job at K-25.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was his job duty there?
MR. BELL: I think Dad worked basically in machining. I think it was inspection. He was an inspector. I think he got some of his trade as a welder right after the war. Dad had gone up to Groton, Connecticut and worked for Electric Boat welding submarines. He also went down to Apalachicola, Florida and worked at welding, too. He had some experience in the service and also experience working other places. I think he also worked at San Diego, California in an aircraft factory. Even during that time, they traveled – and in Memphis, Tennessee, too in an aircraft factory.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did he stay at K-25 his whole job career?
MR. BELL: No, he didn’t. During the early ’60s, they thought there was going to be a layoff. And we were living down on Tucker Road at that time. I was just a little boy. They came and interviewed. And about five men got a job up at Ellsworth Air Force Base in quality control, working as a subcontractor for the government – for the US military at Ellsworth in Rapid City. He stayed there one year. That job played out, so to speak. And then he went to Chico, California, and worked at an Air Force base there and worked one more year. I believe that was 1961 and ’62 because we came back to Oak Ridge in ’63. He was going to be transferred to Connecticut if he stayed with it. He was making a lot more money than he would be coming back to Y-12. He’d known Vern Gritzner at K-25 and Mr. Bill Oden. He called back ’cause he didn’t want to move a family again – had three kids. And it was hard enough to pack everything up and move every year. So he knew that to have stability that he would come back to Y-12. He took about a half a job pay cut. At his age, he was making really good money. He was doing well. He was equivalent on the chart to even a general at that time in the civilian side of what he was doing. He said it was very interesting work up there where they had the missiles and launchers up under the silos. But he said he needed to come back and get some stability and live in Oak Ridge. We came back and moved to Malvern Road and lived there until he retired and until he passed away in 2005.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What’d you recall about your father’s schooling?
MR. BELL: From what I understand – I’d gone to Corinth and numerous times had talked to people that knew him and said that he had graduated – it was a smaller school of a population probably 12 to 15 thousand people – that he was really at the top of his class. He was very intelligent, very articulate. His family was not a real educated family. But when the draft came, he had to go into the service. His plans were to go to Ole Miss or to Mississippi State and get an education. But Dad went into the service. He was kind of a self-made person. He progressed heavily at the plant. He moved up at Y-12 from I’d say starting as a foreman to general foreman to a department head, which is pretty hard – inspection department. He did really well in that area.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about your mother’s schooling?
MR. BELL: My mother graduated from Corinth High School in ’28. My mother was a homemaker pretty much during the time we were all young. Of course, she was a very pretty woman and modeled in her younger years and worked in numerous dress shops throughout Oak Ridge and Knoxville and had worked at Samuel’s and worked at Four Oaks Fashions and numerous dress shops. She was into the fashion world. She loved clothes and people and enjoyed selling clothes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did the family first live when they first came to Oak Ridge?
MR. BELL: I believe, if I’m not mistaken, they lived in an apartment up on Waddell Circle – up near Highland View for a short period of time. And then they moved over to Nevada Circle in Woodland and lived beside the Oden’s over there, which he had known – he knew Mr. Oden.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Are your brothers older than you?
MR. BELL: They are. I’ve got a brother we call Greg. His real name’s Harold Gregory Bell. He’s four years older – a’69 graduate of Oak Ridge High School. I have another brother, Dennis. And he’s a ’67 graduate of Oak Ridge High School.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were they born in Mississippi?
MR. BELL: They were born in Mississippi. I was born in ’55, and they moved here in ’53. I’m the only son that was born in Oak Ridge. I was actually born in Knoxville. But we resided in Oak Ridge.
MR. HUNNICUTT: The first home that the family lived in – Mother and Father and two boys, is that correct?
MR. BELL: That’s correct. It would’ve been up on Waddell Circle.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of housing is that on Waddell Circle?
MR. BELL: I believe it was K apartments.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That’s basically a two-bedroom –
MR. BELL: It’s a four-complex unit. The L’s are two complex.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember the address of that first one?
MR. BELL: I don’t recall it. I wasn’t born during that time. I know about where it was located. But I don’t know the address.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me a little bit about your school history. What was your first school that you attended?
MR. BELL: My first school in kindergarten was Elm Grove. We lived on Tucker Road. The next year would’ve been ’61. And we moved to Rapid City, South Dakota. And I attended Pinedale Elementary in Rapid City. Then we moved the next year to Chico, California. I don’t recall the name of that elementary. We moved during that half a year and came back to Oak Ridge and lived up on West Outer for a real short period of time – just an apartment. And I attended Highland View for a half a year.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What grade would that be?
MR. BELL: That would’ve been second grade. Because of the move that we had, we bought a house on Michigan Avenue. They came to me during the summer and said because of moving twice at such an early age, I got really behind in school. I’m sure that’s one of the reasons Dad wanted to have some stability. I had to repeat second grade again at Pine Valley. But nobody knew me. It was like I was going into second grade. It wasn’t a big issue or anything. I remember during the summer my mother coming to me and telling me I was going to have to repeat second grade. And it bothered me a little bit during that time. I actually needed more than that. I really was way behind the other students ’cause Oak Ridge was kind of a hard system. They wanted the best. And I needed to repeat it. It was the best thing that probably happened to me.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you attend Pine Valley all your elementary school days?
MR. BELL: I did. I attended Pine Valley and had some really good teachers up there. Of course, Landis Pullham was principal. I had Miss Arnold – I think for fourth grade, Miss McGhee, Miss McNutt, Miss White and had – just a really good school. I have fond memories of it today. When I retired from the Oak Ridge system, I told the people there that I was standing in the same gym that I retired from Oak Ridge School System with that I started out with in elementary school.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was class like during those days in Pine Valley?
MR. BELL: Working in an elementary – which I worked in later – it was very strict. But they wanted to teach. It was very uniform. During Christmas, they’d bring everybody up into the foyer and put a piano out and sing Christmas songs. We had numerous plays during that time. We had a great Y after school where you – Mr. Hicks was our PE teacher. We’d play baseball or basketball or football and played other schools during that time. We got to attend different events. It was a great school. During the summertime, of course, we had the Recreation Department. And we were able to have summer programs at the school, too, that we really liked. We had a morning session and an evening session – a coach and the coaches – and provided by Oak Ridge Recreation Department – just a great thing. We could come and go as we pleased. We didn’t have to worry about [inaudible] during that time. People didn’t worry about their kids as much. Everybody watched out for them. Even older kids would watch out for the younger ones. It was a great time. It was a good school. I have fond memories.
And as far as I’m concerned, I don’t really ever want to see it torn down. There were three schools that were identical – of course, that’s Elm Grove and Cedar Hill and Pine Valley. And Pine Valley’s the only remaining school – it is in the school administration building now. As I go in it sometimes, I close my eyes. And I have vivid memories of – can almost see myself at a desk or walk down the little stairs that goes down to the second area. There used to be a mural up over the – and it’s not there anymore. But I kind of still see it – just a great school. And I remember all my teachers.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you walk to school each day?
MR. BELL: I did. I rode my bicycle a lot of times, as I got older. That’s another thing that’s really interesting. We had path – it was interesting how they set it up. On the left side of Michigan Avenue – I was the last street that went to Pine Valley. The next street up was Maple Lane. And everything to the right, starting at the bottom, went to Cedar Hill. So there was only four or five streets that went to Pine Valley. And we all cut through the woods ’cause we were closer to the school. And we used to kind of kid the other kids – we’d call them cheater hill – Cedar Hill – they call them cheater hill. But the Pine Valley kids stuck with the Pine Valley kids. The Cedar Hill kids stuck with the Cedar Hill kids. There were kids everywhere. Every street had 10-15 kids. Everywhere you went there was children during that time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: About how far was the house from the Pine Valley School?
MR. BELL: Less than a quarter mile. You walked around the block. And you could almost see the back of Pine Valley from our street when the trees weren’t covering the wooded area. I remember vividly one thing that’s interesting. I’d got a Schwinn stingray bicycle sometime around ’66-’67. And that was really a neat thing – got it from the old fix-it shop here in Oak Ridge. I’d always begged my daddy to get a Schwinn bicycle. And he said, “I’m not going to get that.” He said, “You can get on Murray’s just as good from Western Auto. You’re not going to get a stingray.” I could just taste one. That was a big thing as a kid. On Christmas Day, of course, I got one – walked in, and it was one of the happiest times. I remember riding that bicycle. We’d bear walk them. We’d lift them up. We had slicks on the back. I’d go down through that path. And we’d just kind of fly down through there. And there was a big root that went across into the path. And when we hit that big root, we’d take a jump up over that root – you know – give us a big lift over to the next. A bunch of us would be riding down to the playground. We’d ride up and down, go eat and come back. Many years later, that path’s kind of grown up. But you can still go down through there. One day I was walking down through there, many years later, and looked down. And I saw that root again. And it brought back those memories of me as a child, jumping that root. It’s still there. Those kinds of things are set in my mind. I have a love for things like that and seeing things that we had during that time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did they have the safety patrol at Pine Valley.
MR. BELL: We did have safety patrol.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about that.
MR. BELL: Well, it was just an organization that was set up to make sure everybody was safe. And they stood in the halls. They had a strap with a badge that went over. They would make sure we got to out classes and people were safe. Sometimes teachers stood with them, too. I wasn’t in the safety patrol. But I remember it very well.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What’d you remember about how you dressed when you went to school? What’d you wear?
MR. BELL: During my elementary school years, we had to dress in basically dress shoes, nice shirt, pair a slacks. We pretty much dressed up. As it progressed into the ’60s – of course, that was the early ’60s – and into the late ’60s and ’70s – by the time I got to high school, I looked at my brother’s annual. And they were still dressing in ties and shirts. But we were through a period where I guess it’s very liberal ’cause we just kind of wore T-shirts and blue jeans – pretty much in high school, what we wanted. I think through junior high, we still had to dress pretty much. But it changed over a period to where you pretty much could be liberal in your dress. And there wasn’t a dress code in high school. I guess that would’ve been in the early ’70s.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember any particular plays or events at Pine Valley that kind of stands out in your mind?
MR. BELL: I was in one play. It was about the Cherokee Indians. And I can remember having just a few lines. I wasn’t much into that at that time. Everybody had to be in the play. I said something about I am the chief. Or I am a brave or something like that. I had my little headband on and everything. Miss White put that on.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have any favorite teachers at Pine Valley?
MR. BELL: I guess Miss McNutt would’ve been one of my favorites. I had one that was very special to me. Like I said, I struggled in my elementary years by getting so far behind. And Oak Ridge started a new concept about my sixth grade year. And it was called team teaching. It’s where they opened up four classrooms. And you had a homeroom. You could see all the classes. But you had homeroom in one. But you might have your reading over with another teacher. You might have your history with another. You moved around through that. At the end of the day, you come back to your homeroom. And we could all see each other. So you had a pod of three or four different teachers. And that was a concept where if you were low in one area, maybe you worked with this teacher. And they’d take the higher students and kind of put them up there. Working in elementary later on, they don’t do it the same way anymore. The way they do it now is the kids will leave and go to their classes like that.
But that really helped me. That was a teacher that was very special. Her name was Joan Jablonski. And she was the one that instilled in me that I could do things again. I remember before that time, I asked a question – they brought one TV. They only had one big, old black and white TV. And they would roll it into one room. I remember we had a prime minister come into America during that time from Russia to visit. And I was really scared to ask questions. Maybe you don’t think you’re very smart, so you just don’t say a whole lot. You kind of just sit in the background. But she told me that no question’s dumb. Any question you ask is a good thing. I can still, to this day, remember raising my hand kind of shy-like. And I said, “Why is it that when the Russian prime minister comes to America – if we don’t like Russia, why do we treat him so well?” She said, “That’s a great question.” She explained it diplomatically – probably at that time – that when our president goes over there, we treat them with respect. She gave me my first A. I hadn’t had an A – we started getting grade letters maybe in fifth grade. She taught me math. I was really struggling hard in math. I remember taking a test under her and getting my first A and how that made me feel – and instilling that in me that I can do attitudes. I can remember taking that paper – I’d never had an A in my life – and running back home through the woods to show it to my mother and dad that I got an A.
MR. HUNNICUTT: If I remember right, they used to use U for unsatisfactory and S for satisfactory before then.
MR. BELL: They sure did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was the final grade level at Pine Valley when you attended?
MR. BELL: It was sixth grade. Like I say, if it hadn’t been for Miss Jablonski, I don’t know that I would’ve made it through high school because I was so far behind. But she helped me so much. I didn’t have a problem in junior high. I didn’t have a problem in high school. I wasn’t in the higher classes. I was probably somewhere in the middle. But she told me I could do anything I set my mind to do. And many years – she left Oak Ridge School System. She was a very young teacher. She had taught at Scarboro. They closed Scarboro School. I always wanted to find her. I wrote a book a few years ago and put her in one of my articles. And I searched, and I searched, and I searched. And I finally was able to find her – and she had just retired as a teacher the year before – and told her what she meant to me. That was a very special thing.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I’d say it was special to her as well. Do you remember who the principal was at Pine Valley when you were there?
MR. BELL: Landis Pullham was principal.
MR. HUNNICUTT: During the summer days when you were in elementary school – during each year of school – what did you do in the summer for fun?
MR. BELL: Like I say, we had the summer programs. We’d basically go in the morning session. My brother was always an early person. He’d get down there before I would. They had checkers and chess. He’d be sitting on these picnic tables. And we had tetherball. We just had so many things you could do. You could sit around with your pals. You rode your bike. You might go up to the store up above Pine Valley and get you some candy or a Coke or whatever. What I can remember the most about it is the summers were so vividly – you were young. And everything was bright to you. Your whole world was built around your school. If we didn’t do that, the mothers – almost stayed home during that time. I remember station wagons were a big thing at that time. They didn’t have the vans or anything. Maybe some of the mothers like Miss Bomar – this little girl that lived behind us – she’d gather all us kids up and take us over on Clinton Highway and get us homemade ice cream. They had homemade peach ice cream. We went down to the Lost Sea sometime. That was big stuff to us to get to go anywhere. Even going to Knoxville at that time was big. Your whole world was your neighborhood. And venturing out like that was just really neat. Riding your bicycle – we could take off and ride through Oak Ridge if we wanted to. Like I said, about five or six guys – we might take off and ride our bikes all day long. We might not come home ’till our daddies got off work at 5 o’clock. It was just a great time. I think I primarily stayed around those playgrounds – me and my brother did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was the ice cream place on Clinton Highway you referred to – was that Wallace’s?
MR. BELL: Uh-huh, it was Wallace’s.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I remember that – up on top the hill above where the K-mart and all that is today – on the right, if I remember right.
MR. BELL: Then there was my mother – of course, they didn’t just go to take us to get ice cream. There was a shop called the All-mart – keep going down Clinton Highway – it’s the Expo Center now. That was kind of the first discount store in our area during that time – called it All-mart. In Oak Ridge at that time, I don’t think we had much. We had Kings down here. We might’ve had Howards or whatever it was called over there – maybe a couple – but that was the big one on Clinton Highway.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Value Mart –
MR. BELL: Right, we had the Value Mart, of course, at Jackson Square.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you went up to Pine Valley shopping center above the school, what’d you remember that being like? Describe that as best you can remember it.
MR. BELL: During my early years, of course, I got my hair cut by Mr. Breedan up there and had a barbershop. Mr. Bass had the drugstore. Of course, there’s a little grocery store there and, I think, a cleaners. Of course, during my early years, I went to school one morning and looked up there, and it burnt down. It burnt to the ground. And then they rebuilt it into a different structure. That was early in my years. People still had the barbershop. It was kind built the same way. But it was a metal-type building then – still there. I remember Value Mart – a while ago – an interesting story about a man in the day that I think so much of – Mr. Storey was assistant manager at Value Mart. I remember one time I went down into the salvage there downstairs – they had toys and stuff. I had some pocket change – didn’t have much money during that time. I said, “Jerry, how much is this football right here?” And I just pulled it out of a bag. And he said, “Well, how much you got there, son.” And he counted my change. He took a pen and marked that football just exactly where I could buy it with the change that I had. He was a special person. I never forgot that. I told him that today and also put that in the article that I’d wrote. Like I said, most people watched out for you or cared about the kids. He didn’t have to do that. I wanted that football. He was going to make sure I had it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I think that anybody that lived in Oak Ridge that visited the Value Mart remembered Jerry Storey.
MR. BELL: Special man –
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you collect lightening bugs and sell lightening bugs when you were growing up?
MR. BELL: No, I never really did that. I did probably catch some of them. I don’t remember people selling them.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you deliver the newspaper?
MR. BELL: My middle brother had the routes. I always wanted one. But I was kind of in between people. By the time I got older, I would go with my brother’s route. He had a Sentinel route – Mr. Yourbury – he used to pick up papers down at Snow White. Mr. Yourbury was, I guess, the manager for Oak Ridge area. We’d pick up and go on his routes with him. And I’d follow along and help him sometimes – or even had a [Oak] Ridger route later on and help him collect or something like that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember what Mr. Yourbury’s first name was?
MR. BELL: I really don’t. I just remember Mr. Yourbury.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I think that’s all we ever knew him as. He had that route manager job for many years in Oak Ridge. Did you ever collect Coke bottles?
MR. BELL: I did do that. I’d collect Coke bottles and take them up and sell them to the grocery stores and get my – I don’t know what they paid back then, but it wasn’t a whole lot a money.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Five cents a bottle, maybe –
MR. BELL: It was a lot to us.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I don’t know whether you did this or not. On the bottom of Coke bottles, they used to have the city where they were bottled. We used to play a game called Faraway. You’d pick a bottle. And the one that had the farthest bottle away would have to buy the Cokes. Did you ever play that?
MR. BELL: No, I never played. I do remember looking on the bottoms. I will tell you one that’s kind of fun – talking about Coke bottles – ’cause I collect them now – I collect a lot a stuff now. There was a bottle that come out sometime in the mid-’60s – it could’ve been ’64. The name of the drink was Pommac. And all the kids wanted a Pommac because it looked like beer. We thought we were grownup. It was a soft drink. But it had the color of beer. We thought we were cool ’cause we were drinking a Pommac. That didn’t stay very long. Pommac wasn’t around too long. People during that time will definitely remember it. To tell you the truth, it tasted awful.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I can’t remember. But did they have home milk delivery?
MR. BELL: We got our milk from Avondale.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Delivered right to the door, if I remember right.
MR. BELL: They did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How do you remember Christmastime when you were still going to elementary school? What do you remember about Christmas at home?
MR. BELL: It was during the Santa Claus time – we was young – we opened in the morning. Later on, we had our Christmas presents on Christmas Eve. And the story on that bicycle deal – I guess that was the best Christmas. It was probably the Christmas of ’67. In most cases, I was kind of an inquisitive kid. I’d go in there at night when I thought my daddy was asleep. And I’d take me a little something out. I couldn’t wait ’till Christmas. I’d look in there and find out what I’d had – I’d already know. They kind of figured I was doing that at Christmas. The deal on the bicycle was – I didn’t get a whole lot that Christmas Eve. And I was real disappointed. My brothers got a lot. I didn’t get much. I think it was that Saturday morning after Christmas, my dad said, “We got to go over to your Papa’s.” He said, “Greg’s coming with us.” My middle brother said, “We’ll go over to Papa’s and eat breakfast.” Like I say, I was disappointed. They left me and said, “You’re going to stay over at your mammy and Papa’s. And we’re going to come pick you up. We got to go do something.” So they come got me about an hour or two later and went back over to the house – walked back into the house. I looked down through there, and there’s that Schwinn deluxe stingray sitting in the living room – brand-new. And I mean, I was excited. It was Christmas Day that I got to ride it all up and down through there. I was so excited. I’ll never forget that Christmas. They fooled me. I fool them, they fool me.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did it seem like your brothers would get more than you did at Christmastime?
MR. BELL: Yeah, but they got different things. They were quite a bit older than I was. They would start getting more clothes. I don’t think they made a whole lot a difference. I was never like that too much. Me and my middle brother were closer. They got us some walkie-talkies one year where we’d set up there and talk. He’d go down the street. And we’d talk. We thought that was so cool at that time to be able to talk just down the street. There wasn’t a whole lot of that. We weren’t too jealous of each other. My oldest brother was more serious than my middle brother and I. He was already working on his education. He was such a distance in part ’cause we moved back there in ’63. And he graduated high school in ’67. I wasn’t real close to my oldest brother ’cause the fact he was so much older than I was. All I know is when he left, I got my own bedroom. My brother moved into the other one.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have to wear some of your older brothers’ clothes?
MR. BELL: I did. I used some of my middle brother’s clothes. But most of the time – during the time school started, they had a little budget. And they’d get us all some new clothes for school.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ever go grocery shopping with your mother?
MR. BELL: I did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where would she go mostly?
MR. BELL: My mother liked French’s Market down there. It was a new – French’s sat down right in front of the hospital. I have fond memories of it. It was one of the neatest grocery stores. It was made so different. It had all this colored glass in it. It was an octagon-looking building. The bags that they put the groceries in were colorful. They had French’s Market on it. They had all these different colors on the bags – neat experience to go in there. I’d go in there with my mother. You just drove up. And they’d put your groceries in your car back then. Later on I talked to the lady – Miss Branch – her daughter, Kay Lynn. I was telling her that was a neat building – I’d got a picture of French’s. And she said, “Well, the reason that was built that way – Daddy always loved the circus. When he built his grocery store, he even on the roof kind of made it looked tiered. He built it to look like a circus. And I never knew that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: It had a rounded top.
MR. BELL: It had kind of a rounded top. Most people wouldn’t build it that way ’cause it’s somewhat wasted space. But it was real unique looking; I remember that. I thought it was real neat.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember when French’s had their little market on what we call Tri-County Boulevard now, back by the railroad?
MR. BELL: I remember what it was. And the Carefree Drive-In Theater set behind it. We didn’t venture too much out of Oak Ridge during that time. But I remember it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: They ventured into Oak Ridge. I believe that location was about where the physical therapy building is now.
MR. BELL: It is about that same area.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you listen to radio much growing up?
MR. BELL: WATO when we were young – listened to football games. And, of course, WNOX in Knoxville was the teenage station. I remember they’d say WNOX 99’ers. We was listening to AM. And at night, of course, when you could get the stations like WOWO, Fort Wayne, Indiana; WLS, Chicago; WCFL; Chicago; and KDA, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – we’d listen to all those big stations, especially WLS ’cause they – top 40 – and you could get them at night real good. They went all over the nation.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember a radio program coming outta Nashville – I believe John R – Randy’s Record March. Do you remember the name of that?
MR. BELL: I don’t remember that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: It really came out of Gallatin, Tennessee on Friday and Saturday nights. It was one of those programs that would go way off if the skip was right. It catered to the military. You could barely get it in Oak Ridge at certain times. And other times it was really good. They played all kinds a different music that was popular then.
MR. BELL: We used to listen to Casey Kasem’s top 40. He was the person that was kind of big DJ nationwide. They’d have top 40 on Sunday. Back then, it was country and western music, which we’d say we didn’t listen to. Sometimes we would. But we would never admit to it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did the family have a TV?
MR. BELL: Yeah, Dad had some old black and whites downstairs. I think it was a Philco. And we had some portable TVs upstairs. But they weren’t color. I don’t think we had a color TV ’till way up in there sometime. I wanted 26 because they had some –
MR. HUNNICUTT: Channel 26 –
MR. BELL: I wanted 26. My dad – you’d have to know him – he’d say, “Two channels is all you need. Ain’t nothing but trash on that other one, anyway.” He wouldn’t put an antenna up. And you couldn’t get 26. It was real hard to pick up in Oak Ridge. He finally did put an antenna up where we could get 26. I remember watching the TV. The TVs wasn’t even very good back then. You’d be watching and all of a sudden, it’d start rolling. Right in the middle of a good scene, it’d start rolling. I think my brother would hit the top of it or something. On the rabbit ears – to get 26, we had to take tinfoil out and do something. It’d come in better if you wrapped tinfoil around it or something. I remember that we could get Chattanooga every once in a while. I think it was Channel 9 or something. They had Shock Theater on Saturday. Every once in a while, it’d be real snowy. And we’d set that antenna and put that stuff where we could – just enough to watch that Shock Theater out of Chattanooga. It just depended on how the weather was if we could get it. I wanted 26 bad. But he finally did get it. But it was many years later.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember when you’d turn the TV on, and you’d see the test pattern on the screen before the channels ever came on?
MR. BELL: Yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: We used to sit and watch the test pattern. That’s how TV was in those days.
MR. BELL: I remember Channel 12 here. I don’t know what it was called back then – Channel 11 or something. But I remember when they first got cable in Oak Ridge. People got cable then just to get better reception. It wasn’t necessarily the channels. They’d run it down through there, and you’d see the weather. They’d run it back, and you’ll see the time and temperature. They’d just scan it back and forth. That’s all you had on that station. There wasn’t no real program. That’s all that was on there. And I think they’d put community events up there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was the family car when you were young and in elementary school?
MR. BELL: I believe Daddy had a ’63 Pontiac or something like that. In ’65, he bought a 1965 Chevrolet Impala. And that was the family car – red Chevrolet Impala. And my brother was delivering papers on Sunday morning and backed up into a fire hydrant. Needless to say, he didn’t get to drive it anymore. That was a really nice looking car. It was the first – what I call really nice car we had during the time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your family have just one car?
MR. BELL: Just had one – and Daddy carpooled. Mother would get the car certain days of the week. He finally did get another junk car. You just didn’t have two or three cars. People didn’t even have cars. Maybe they called cabs or something like that. Most people had one. That’s all you had.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you use the bus system in Oak Ridge very much?
MR. BELL: I did. I used the bus tickets, bus system, sure did. I remember coming up through Michigan Avenue. And the bus driver’s name was Mary – black woman and real nice. I remember they were old city buses transferred into school buses. There were times – I could get out and walk faster when we’d come up Michigan Avenue. That thing just vibrated. We’d be going up through there. And it just almost wouldn’t make it up there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember the color of the buses?
MR. BELL: They were yellow. But they had been red. They were old city buses.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about when you went to junior high. Where did you go?
MR. BELL: I always wanted to go to Jefferson. That was up on the hill. And the year that I started Jefferson – they opened a new Jefferson – 1968. And it was full a mud. It was just opening up. I didn’t particularly like the new Jefferson. There wasn’t windows in it. You had very few little windows in it. It was a nice school. My brothers both had gone to the old Jefferson. And I just thought that was a neat school. It had a big auditorium and had a lot a windows – press box was right there built onto the school. They tore that down. I attended all three years at the new Jefferson. We referred to it then as the new Jefferson.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you said the old on the hill, what are you referring to?
MR. BELL: Well, basically, it’d been the old high school. When they built the new high school in, I think, early ’50s, they turned into Jefferson Junior High School. I know that studying back and doing some research that Jefferson really was where Robertsville was. And there was only one junior high. When they built the new high school, they turned that to Robertsville. And then they moved Jefferson up on the hill. We had two junior highs after that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was Jefferson relocated? Where was the new school?
MR. BELL: It was built on Fairbanks Road over in Emory Valley.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And they’ve changed it now to –
MR. BELL: It’s called Jefferson Middle School – Jefferson Junior High when I was there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you attended the new school – you were talking about a lot a mud ’cause it was new – what’d you discover different at junior high than elementary school?
MR. BELL: More freedom, of course. You went to your classes where you had one class. I always didn’t like elementary ’cause you had to sit there all day long in the same class – so we went to junior high – if you didn’t particularly like a teacher, you didn’t have to stay with her but an hour and you went to another one. I thought it was more freedom. It was definitely a different learning experience. We actually had a lot a racial problems at the time that I went. There was that time during the Martin Luther King assassination and everything. They had to place some guards up in the hall. I never had any problem. But a lot a people did. I seemed to get along with everybody pretty well – really never had any problem in school. I don’t think I got into but two fights in my whole life – and didn’t want to get in those. I lost one and won one. I guess I’m even for the fighting in my life, which I didn’t like to do. One thing I can remember, Nick Orlando – of course, being our gym teacher – paddling us all. He was a neat guy. He liked kids. But he’d run us. We didn’t have a track. So he’d run us around that big drive – go all the way down on Fairbanks Road and run back up to the front. And I used to dread it. It’d be cold. We’d put our shorts on and have to run. I never did like that too much. I enjoyed the inside stuff in the new gym. I liked the new gym they had.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were students required to take showers during gym class?
MR. BELL: We were.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So that was something new to you.
MR. BELL: That was new.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did they have shop classes at the new Jefferson?
MR. BELL: I had shop. I had – what’s his name – I could think of it I wasn’t sitting here trying to think of it. We had a neat shop. We even had a program set up where we started making things and selling them. We’d make certain woodworking projects. Everybody’d make a certain thing. And then we’d put them together. And we actually sold them to the community. His name was Brent Davis. He was our shop teacher. He wasn’t there too many years. But he helped coach, too. I remember that he had an expression. And if he didn’t like something and we was trying to pull something over on him, he’d say, “Get outta here.” We had some good teachers there, too. I liked my junior high and high school. I guess out of all of them, probably my junior high and high school was my favorite.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What were some of the classes you took at Jefferson?
MR. BELL: One of my favorites was Mr. Foster. He taught history. He took us on fieldtrips and stuff. We got to go to Fort Loudon and look at it where the dam had covered the Indians. He was a real nice teacher. Of course, Mr. Hayes was a teacher. I had to get up and give my first oral report. I think I did pretty well with it. That was a scary moment. He later on became principal at Robertsville. I had that. I think I had Miss Branum. And Miss Cherry was a teacher in science. I don’t remember all of them. I remember the ones that I’m sure that I liked. I enjoyed the junior high years. We got to go to sock hops. We called them sock hops. We had our little dances. And Connie, a friend of mine, that helped me with my TV show we do here – she was kind of somebody I liked to dance with. We used to dance and have a good time. Then we had the ballgames. Of course, you got to start attending junior high games and stuff. We got to do so much more. When you got up in the different things, there was events and stuff. If you went to the junior high football games – I don’t think we even watched football games. We’d walk around all the time – walk around the track, talk. You got to start seeing girls. I remember I had a girlfriend in junior high school. Her name was Debbie. I guess you call it dates. They’d pick us up and take us. She moved away. Into my ninth-grade year, her daddy passed away. She moved to Alabama. When I went to high school, I lost my girlfriend. Everybody had theirs. I had to try to find another one. I got back in contact with her a few years ago. She lives in Alabama – and talk to her every once in a while. I’ve got a picture of her with a little chain I gave her in junior high school. Like I say, it was a neat period. That was ’68 through 71.
MR. HUNNICUTT: During the summertime when you were in junior high, did you work – have any jobs?
MR. BELL: I didn’t have a job until late junior high – ninth grade, I helped my brother with a paper route. I went to work at the Skyway Drive-In Theater my ninth-grade year. When you’re able to work – officially, I think it’s 15 and a half or 16. I don’t know. But I went to work for Roy Pimmerton out at Skyway and worked there all through high school – worked in the concession stand making popcorn and hotdogs and Cokes. He paid us all a $6.00 a night. Sometimes I owed him ’cause I ate so much food. If you had to go write down what you got – so we’d write it on the back of a thing. And he charged us half price. Sometimes it’d get down to where you owed him money. You’d have to go to the next week if you took a date or something out there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was the Skyway Drive-In located?
MR. BELL: It’s located on Illinois Avenue where they – basically where the McDonald’s set and the shopping center – I guess that would be the Kroger – K-mart shopping center out there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How many nights a week did you work there?
MR. BELL: During the summertime, I’d probably work four – maybe Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Through the school year, I’d work on Friday and Saturday nights and sometimes Sunday.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember the bingo games they used to have in between the –
MR. BELL: I think that’s probably before I did it. They didn’t have that then. What I do remember is we had horror-rama movies. We’d show three horror pictures. Or we’d have Elvis-rama’s, which we’d show three Elvis movies. I do remember the movie that drew the best during that period. Most of the movies had already showed at indoor theaters. So they would come to us maybe a month later. And we showed Love Story at the Drive-In. For some reason, it was packed every night. They were lined up down to Illinois getting in. We showed another movie that I think it was called Vanishing Point; that was a big hot-rod-type movie. And it drew a lot a people. There were certain movies that were just packed. And all I could remember during that time is just how fast and how many people during the intermission would come in and buy food. Normally we waited on people one-on-one. During the intermission, we’d set it up different with the cash register down to the end. And two people would handle the hamburgers and the hotdogs and the fries and another handle the drinks and the popcorn and another’d be on the cash register. And we sold cigarettes and stuff there. So they would come down the line and get theirs. And I always handled the popcorn. All I can remember is how much I popped. You could pop and box it and box it and seem like you still run out. You had to just continue to never stop. We just did a tremendous business out there during the time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember how much popcorn was a box?
MR. BELL: Yeah, I remember the prices. It was 15 cents, 25 cents, and 35 cents. I remember the hotdogs were 25 cents. The hamburgers were 35 cents. The French fries were 35 cents. Candy was, like, a dime and 15 cents. Chilled dill pickles were 10 cents apiece. Those were the big pickles you used to get out. I can just see it in my mind today. If it was still there, I could probably go in there and start now.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What year would that’ve been?
MR. BELL: The reason I got the job was my brother Greg worked there before I did. And he said, “I got a younger brother.” So I came along. I worked there from probably 1970 through ’74.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did they still have the bench and the mic up front so you could get out and go up there if you wanted to and listen?
MR. BELL: Yeah, they did have a mic set by the projection booth. Auberdale [Inaudible] ran the projection. Mr. Simcox had run it before. And he retired. And Auberdale came from Virginia. Auberdale was a funny-type fella. Everybody’s going to remember Auberdale during that time – from a very rural country area in Pound, Virginia – is where he came from. He had an old Plymouth – probably in the ’60s – had them CB whips. He had two of them that tied down. And a funny story about it – he was called the Sarsaparilla Kid. And I had an old Corvair at that time. I was going to name myself the Corvair Kid. He came in the concession stand out there from the booth – he was a big, old heavyset guy. We called him heavy sometime. He told me, “You can’t be the Corvair Kid. It sounds like a western. You’re going to have to change it to just Corvair. This town ain’t big enough for two kids.” I get a laugh outta that. Me and Auberdale had a love/hate feud, I guess you could say. He was always picking on me. I was little then. I’m bigger now. But I was a little guy. And he was big. And Auberdale would pick on me. He’d come in there and say something. He started something with me one night. I told him to leave me alone. And I told Roy, the owner, I said, “You got to tell him to leave me alone. I’m tired of him coming in there messing with me.” I said, “I’m going to pop him if he keeps on. I’m not going to take it no more.” He probably could’ve killed me – like he’s huge. But he’s always doing something to me to get me fired up. That night he got me all fired up. And I reached over the counter and I popped him one and knocked his partial loose. He said I was going to have to pay for it. And Roy said, “No, you started it, Auberdale.” We were best friends the next day. He was older than I was. It was a neat thing. I remember Roy, the owner – another funny story – if it was real slow like on a Sunday night, we had a little TV that we watched. And you could look out and see the movie through a big window, but you couldn’t hear it. So most the time we’d watch this TV. But it’d get real slow some Sunday nights. He’d maybe just have me in there working. He’d send me on home. If a real pretty girl walked in there – now, any other time, I’d have to get up and wait on them. But if a real pretty girl walked in, he’d look over to me, and he’d say, “I’ll handle this one, Donald.” And he’d go wait on the girl. He said, “That’s a healthy child, Donald. That’s a healthy child.”
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ever attend the Oak Ridge swimming pool? Did you ever go there much?
MR. BELL: I did go to the pool. I don’t think I went as much there as some people did. I took swimming lessons there. It’d be cold early in the morning – that water. I remember taking swimming lessons. And we did go down there. You rented the tubes right there. You had the – Ralph’s Place – it was called during that time. You’d rent tubes. And you got to go out there and swim to the raft and everything. That’s where I learned to swim. They had the lessons in the morning.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about some other places like the bowling lanes or the skating rink?
MR. BELL: Yeah, I didn’t go to the skating rink. We had a skating rink on the west end of Oak Ridge. My favorite things was Funland downtown – in my early years. They had the Ferris wheel and the swings. I can remember going down there talking to the guy. If I didn’t have money, they’d let me ride and stuff. I’d do something for them – maybe pick up paper or something. But I can remember going up on the Ferris wheel and smelling them donuts cooking down there – how good the donuts smelled from that Federal Bakery down there. They were smelling so good. I remember going down there. And Freddie, the blind guy with the tin cup playing the guitar. I’d drop a nickel in his cup. And he’d play you a song. I remember going and popping the balloons for a banana split in the Woolworth’s and McCrory’s. The balloons had a price in there – it’d be from a nickel to 35 cents. You popped that balloon; you got that banana split for that price.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That Funland was located between – was it Penney’s?
MR. BELL: Funland actually changed. When I left Oak Ridge – I got pictures of it – where Woolworth’s was, it was an open spot because they were coming. But they hadn’t come. So that was Funland. Later on, Funland moved up in the corner where Proffitt’s – where it was open – next to the Kohl’s there. That was Funland then – mainly right there’s where I remember the most it being. Of course, the bat-bat – Squeaky had the bat-bat down there on the end where Comfort Inn is now. We’d go down and try to hit balls in the batting cages. You had to first Putt-Putt Adam – Mr. Boringer owned, and it was where the Firestone was. And that was in the early years. He had the windmill and everything. And it was painted green. Of course, when Putt-Putt opened up, it was behind where the Krystal is. It kind of put Adam outta business. And that’s where we had our tournaments and played Putt-Putt. That was another thing – every kid played Putt-Putt. We loved it. The story behind it was that we were riding our bicycle down through there one day. And I was coming to play at a tournament on Saturday. Sometimes he’d have a Saturday tournament. It was that same Schwinn bicycle – we had our own putters. We thought we were cool ’cause we’d buy this special bladed putter and white ball. I’d normally put my putter up on top that handlebar and let it go out. I was beside St. Mary’s church on that sidewalk, riding my bike. Somehow, my putter got caught down there in them wheels – in the front wheel. It flipped me – if I’d landed on that sidewalk, it’d probably killed me. But it flipped my bicycle three times. And I landed over there in the grass. It seemed like a mile away. I landed there. I was hurt. I went over and told Charlie. I said, “Man, I’m hurting bad. I don’t think I can play like this.” Luckily, it didn’t do anything much to my bicycle. But it tore that putter all to pieces. I remember being mad about my putter getting tore up.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was the Rabbit Drive-In there when you – [Da-Rabbit Drive-In]
MR. BELL: It was when I was a real little boy – like I said, living down on Tucker. I remember my mother, of course, taking me Downtown. And we’d stop at Rabbit. What I mainly remember the most about it was that blinking rabbit up there – you know – blinking. I knew later on that it was a teenage hangout. I talked to a lot a people about it. I remember the rabbit. And I remember going in there getting hamburgers. My mother would pull up to the curb. And we’d get burgers and stuff there. Later on, I remember it changed into – like the Downtown Dairy Queen and the Rural Kitchen, and the Pig and Pup. It had a lot a names until Wendy’s come and bought that. And they tore it down. I definitely remember that. I remember the bowling alley. If you came down the Turnpike – look up there – in my mother and dad’s car. And I’d see the rabbit sign. I’d see that big bowling – all it said was bowling up on top of [Inaudible] Lanes in big, old bright letters. I remember that real well, too.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you were in high school, did you date very much?
MR. BELL: I did some my later years. Like I said, my junior high girlfriend that I really liked had moved off. I didn’t date in the first year, second year. I did date some in my senior year. Me working on weekends at the drive-in, I think I was focused a lot on that. My dating time came mainly right after I graduated high school. I started dating girls then – a little bit younger than I was. People don’t realize that a lot of the Oak Ridge girls – during my time – liked to date people outside of Oak Ridge. If you dated, you seemed like you didn’t date some of the girls at the school. You might date from Clinton or from Karns or from Oliver Springs – around. I can say during that time, I was a football manager for the Oak Ridge – small – I ended up being a manager for the high school team. I got into sports a little bit – being around sports – like I said, working at the Drive-In. So I probably didn’t have as much time for that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What’d you notice the difference was when you went from Jefferson to the high school?
MR. BELL: Your world opened up more. It was a lot like leaving elementary – almost like a step a leaving elementary and going to junior high. And going to high school, the freedom was just so much more – like I say, very liberal when I went. Dr. [Inaudible] was principal my first two years. And Mr. Bordinger was principal in my last year. We got to go out to lunch. We got to do a lot a things – that, necessarily, was probably not good in my early years. I was pretty immature during that time. I was not as grownup and did do some things that if I look back – my brother that had graduated college had a 1962 Impala. And I was just getting my license. Daddy gave me that car to drive – you know – it wasn’t necessarily mine. But I could drive it. I got my permit. He told me, you can drive it to school, Don. But don’t let nobody else drive it. Or maybe he didn’t say that – but drive it to school and drive it back home, that’s all. Well, during that time, this guy had a license. I thought he was more experienced. So I said, “Let’s go out to lunch.” We took the car out and had three girls in the back. We were riding down to McDonald’s. He was kind of showing off as he turned back into the curb right there toward Providence Road off Robertsville. This was my sophomore year. I was probably 16 years old. Well, he didn’t make that curve. And he flipped that car down an embankment over toward the swimming pool. I went halfway through the windshield and had a concussion and my head ripped open. Been going much faster, I probably wouldn’t be here today. A girl got hurt in the back. It totaled the car. If it’d been a small car, I wouldn’t be sitting here today. After that, they came and got my parents. Somebody was on a motorcycle and went and told my mother – she was working at Four Oaks Fashions – that I’d been in a bad wreck. They came over there. People thought maybe I was dead ’cause there was just blood everywhere. A guy came by in an ambulance real quick. I was kind of going hysterical. I was looking at that car – putting a pressure pack on my head and got us to the hospital. I wasn’t as bad as what it looked like. It didn’t do any damage as far as internal damage. But it could’ve been really bad. So I was a little bit fearful to drive after that. And I hadn’t even driven. He drove the car. I was able to get a little Corvair after that and drive. That’s another lesson that was a hard lesson to learn – is you don’t do things at that age – I was probably not – he give me the responsibility, but I didn’t do it right. And I learned. And I’ve never had a wreck since that day ’cause I try to be as careful as I can driving. But that was a hard lesson to learn. And I lost some people after graduation that got killed in car wrecks. And I miss them today. They did some things they shouldn’t have done. And I could be one of those statistics right now.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was the dress like? How did boys wear their hair in those days?
MR. BELL: We pulled it over and kind of long. I wore mine in some Beatle cut. Some people wore it way long – like girls had hair – but most of us just a little bit long. We wore fruit loops in the back. We’d wear cut-off jeans and fray all the bottoms and wear Converse All Star tennis shoes – that was a big thing, colored Converse All Stars. I always just wore an old T-shirt. My mother was into fashions. And she’d go to Sturm’s Youth World and buy me really nice clothes. I wouldn’t ever wear them. She used to say, “You’re wearing rags to school.” But I wasn’t into clothes. I was more into just having a good time. They wanted you to dress. Dress at that time kind of faded away. During my time, it was really, really into the time you just kind of did your own thing. High school could be a little bit cliquish, too. I never really fit into any one group. I got along with people well. But you had your real popular kids that hung out in the lobby. That’s where they hung out in the morning, and they’d socialize. Your black students seemed to hang out in front of the auditorium. The hoods hung out by the bridge as you come into the cafeteria. You had your hippyish – flower children, we called them. And they hung out there by the E building on the hill. They’d set in those set-ins out there. Then you had your jocks. I don’t think we even called them jocks then – boring people that hung around sports. I was too little to be too much of a sports-type. But I loved sports. I hung around more of the gym. And I hung around those people more. But I mixed in with all of them. I just never fit into one group like some people did. It was cliquish. We had almost 560-something people in my graduating class – 1700 students there. It was during the peak of Oak Ridge. I think 1970 was the largest graduating class. They almost hit 600. I don’t think we’ve ever hit 600, but it was close. I just remember going to classes. I loved going to shop class; that was my favorite – electricity shop with Mr. Brown, Charlie Carnes for woodworking. I had Mr. Hamby for art, Mr. Grossman for art. I seemed to stay down there in the D building a lot. That was the D building where they had industrial arts classes. I had Miss Kinneman for vocational reading. She was the kind of teacher – you could tell her you didn’t want a test and just say okay, we don’t have to have one. Looking back, I wish that I had probably studied harder because my thing was just enjoying school. I enjoyed the people. I did real good art and industrial art. But I was not a studier. I’m not sure I even took a book home. If I did, I probably didn’t read it. And I passed. But if I had to go back to that time today as an adult, I would’ve applied myself a lot more. But in some ways, it seemed that I took in more the way that I was. I have vivid memories of stuff. My time going to Blankenship field being a manager – going down – they didn’t have communication on the sidelines to the press box. We had to take wires going all the way to the press box on sticks and go up there where they could talk to each other on the telex in that old press box. I remember John Taylor. He was a football player. He got hurt real bad. And he was kind of a manager, too. And he had an old Jeep. All of a sudden, we took up at the side of that hill in that Jeep. And I was just praying that he don’t turn that thing over. Mine was loving Emory Hale – a coach, Coach Brewster and all the coaches – I just enjoyed that time so much. I remember that we got our letter jackets. And I pulled my little Corvair in next to the gym up there. I had some Puma shoes that they had bought me. And you’re supposed to turn them in. I guess I was going to try to keep them. Coach Brewster come out. He said, “Don, you turn in your shoes yet?” We got the letter jackets in.” I said, “I’ll get them for you right now.” I wanted that letter jacket. But I had to turn them shoes in.
MR. HUNNICUTT: There was something that Mr. Brown could do that most people probably wouldn’t be able to do. Do you remember what that was?
MR. BELL: I remember coming to the door; he’d shock you when you’d hit the door up – where he’d shock you. He’d rig the door up where you opened the door, and it’d shock you. I remember that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: He had a printing class as well as electricity when I went to school. He could stand and raise his foot up and touch the top of the door case.
MR. BELL: I didn’t know that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: He sure did. He was very flexible. And he’s a fairly tall man.
MR. BELL: Oh, he was.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Very gentle man, too.
MR. BELL: Everybody loved Fred Brown.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Mr. Carnes was a unique teacher when I had him. He probably still was when you had him. Do you recall what he used to call you? Maybe he quit doing that when you got into his class.
MR. BELL: He’d call some people knuckleheads or something. I don’t remember, exactly. But he was a funny-type fella.
MR. HUNNICUTT: He called us cowboys.
MR. BELL: I don’t know if he did that. But I remember one time – this wasn’t nice of this student that did this. One student during the morning class – you know you had a piece of plank wood – you’d kind of lock up when you leave. Somebody locked Charlie up in first period – locked him up. And I don’t know if they let him out ’till about the fifth period – and locked him up in there all day. I remember in that class somebody getting their finger cut off on one of those band saws – nearly cut off. He made it fun. Charlie was always a cut-up-type.
MR. HUNNICUTT: He had machine shop as well as woodworking. And he was good at what he did. Tell me a little bit about Emory Hale at halftime and some of the things that he used to do that you could remember.
MR. BELL: Well, I remember, vividly, one thing. In my year, we were not very good at football. This is his early years. He came in ’69 and left in ’80. We were 5 and 5 in 1972. That’s my junior year. We had a lot a good players. But they were – had Bobbie Winkel that went on to play for the Jets and had Danny Sanders. He was a national Frisbee champion and also played for the Jets a little bit. Our senior year, we were really good. We went over and played Central at Neyland Stadium and came back here. And Baylor beat us in the playoffs at Blankenship. I remember Clinton beating us over in Clinton my junior year. He’d always kind of pray before the games. But at halftime at the Clinton game, it scared me. Brewster took Winkel and pushed him up against the thing. I mean, they were reaming him out. They said Clinton is not going to beat us. Emory was very vocal. He ate football up. He lived it. He breathed it. I’ve interviewed him. And Emory said that his time at Oak Ridge is between the high school, his house, and Central Baptist Church. He lived it and breathed it. He did everything he could. He was the motivator. He would motivate you to the point where you thought you could take on any team there was. I remember talking to him later on about playing. I think it was Jackson/Central Mary and playing for the state. And he’d took them down there to play the state. The coach walked out and talked to him and said, “Emory, you’ve got a young team this year. So next year will be your year.” And he walked back in there – and they were supposed to beat us bad. He walked back there and told the players, “Look, we might as well pack up right now and go back to the house. That coach says we’re completely beat. We don’t have any chance at all of winning this game.” He said, “I had them so fired up that they could’ve took on UT and come out there and beat them. We came out there like the Thirty-second Airborne Division – and said we just passed them up. That coach just looked me after the game was up. He built you up to where you thought you were – mentally, you were twice as good as what you did. He took a lot of physically smaller teams and beat bigger teams. He was just a motivator. And then you had – he’s one of the best defensive coordinators there was – Paul Brewster and Chic Rainey, later on, and Coach Buddy Fisher when I was there. He had some good coaches around him. But everybody had their job. Everybody had a specific job. And even me being the manager for the team – it wasn’t like you were a water boy. You had specific things you did. I remember running the lines. We’d have to make sure that they had certain kind of shoes. He had us doing things that we were not allowed. When we were heading out on the bus, we were not allowed to talk on the bus. I got in trouble over that. They’d make you stay on the bus. You didn’t even get to play if you talked at all going somewhere – like we went to [Inaudible]. I remember playing Chattanooga City and Emory losing that game. And he bought us brand-new shirts. We were wearing them on the sideline. It started raining. And he had them hit like a bunch a hogs, and mud just splattered up and covered us in mud and ruined our shirts. He was a fired-up person.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Is it true that he used to throw up before games; he’d be so nervous?
MR. BELL: He was so nervous. He did that quite often. We wouldn’t necessarily see him. He’d go behind the buses and everything – he’d be so nervous. He was high-strung – I say he shouldn’t of took it as serious as he did. He took it serious. But he almost took it to a point where it might not be healthy.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Let’s go back a moment. Describe for me what the Downtown area looked like in the day when it was operating.
MR. BELL: Every store was busy. Even through the week – I mean, there was always cars. It was flourishing – people walking, especially Saturday night. Maybe they were sitting on benches or something. Everybody went to Downtown. All the shops – you had your McCrory’s, and Woolworth, and your Penney’s, your Penney’s annex, Bailoff’s men’s shop. We had one shop when I was in high schools called Oops. It was Levi shop that sold second Levi’s that were down there. Women had Paris Hats down there. You had Mumford’s woodworking place. You had the Cheese Crock – forgot what that other was called next to it. You had some restaurants down there. It was always just so busy. It was the center of Oak Ridge and just really buys and people doing their shopping and socializing. It was beautiful at Christmas. They decorated it really pretty. You had your Santa Claus place up at the end – just a place that you’d never thought would’ve gone away.
MR. HUNNICUTT: All the stores were open-front stores, right.
MR. BELL: Right, and you had a little hangover that you walked around.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When they put the mall in, that was the times. But it kind of fell on its face.
MR. BELL: They had the war kind of between Crown. And Crown started building out in Emory Valley. He told them Oak Ridge demographically might not have worked – that he would remodel the shopping center and kind of front it. Looking back, I think if they just put glass over the front where you could still walk around in the winter – that you could still go into the stores and gave it a good facelift, I think it would still be going today. I think the malls were a thing that we wanted. But I think that when they built that, it caused the rent to go up. And people couldn’t stay there. They also couldn’t take the fact that you had to go through two or three years – you had to move out. And you’d have to move back in because – you know – a lot of businesses just went completely out ’cause they couldn’t take that two-year period of change.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, west Knoxville had a mall.
MR. BELL: And it was close by, too.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What year did you graduate?
MR. BELL: I graduated in 1974.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you do after you graduated?
MR. BELL: I got a job first working at Western Sizzling Steakhouse in 1975.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was that located?
MR. BELL: I went to [Inaudible] State for a little while. And I didn’t like college. I tried that. It didn’t work for me. I was working at a little club here in Oak Ridge called the CLU Club. And I was just taking up money at the door and cleaning up during the day. I was still living at home. And a guy walked in there and said, “We’re building a Western Sizzling.” He said, “I’ve watched you. You’re a good worker. I’m going to hire you when that opens up.” And I thought maybe he will, maybe he won’t. I went down there. And they hired me. I became a cook and a nightshift manager and went up to Morristown to train to learn how to cook steaks. We had 17 different steaks at that time. And I never cooked except for working at the Drive-In and concession stand. I looked at him and said, “Well, what am I going to be? A bus boy? Dishwasher? What am I going to be?” He said, “You’re going to be a head cook.” I’m thinking I ain’t never cooked. So he sent me to Morristown to train. I just went up there for three days. Well, it was confusing, for one thing. You had to learn all those steaks by numbers to cook. I went back to Oak Ridge. I don’t think I did very well at it. I didn’t know this. But they called Bill McCoy and said, “You better put that boy on something else. He’ll never make it as a cook.” Well, Bill was a smart guy – another guy I worked for that I really appreciate as a manager. He was a great manager. He was like Emory Hale in motivation. He knew how to motivate. But he walked up to me. And he said, “They’ve called Junior Macon outta’ Morristown. You’re not going to make it as a cook. You ain’t got what it takes.” When they said that to me, that was my motivation right there. He says, “I ain’t going to make it.” I’m going to do whatever it takes. So I had to devise a way to be able to cook when all those people started rush – you got to remember, we didn’t have many restaurants here at that time, especially a place like that. I came up with the idea that – 17 different steaks – I just took tags and put them on every steak. They would be in the cooler behind me. And I would number what that steak was. Like a No. 1’s a small sirloin. A No. 2’s a club steak. And I’d number them so that when the numbers come up on there, and I had to put them on the grill what the steak was – you couldn’t say gun smoke because it was a No. 9. Once I learned it – once they come in, you’re only ordering about six of them all the time. You’re going to learn them. Within two weeks, we had them lined out the door every night. Well, it didn’t take me no time. I learned. I didn’t have to have those tags no more. I ended up being the fastest – the best cook. They took me to openings throughout the whole South – opening five or six steakhouses. I told Paducah – I was up there working. I told Bill McCoy, “Junior Macon called. Tell him I’ll take him on cooking any time. Tell him I made it.” I made it. We did well. I worked for Western Sizzling for about a year. And I went and helped open one in Morristown and worked up there at another steakhouse that Charlie Paynor was opening. Then I made a decision. And I really didn’t want to because I liked in working in those. But I also knew that it didn’t offer many benefits. And it was a young man’s job. I wouldn’t be able to do that my whole life or probably wouldn’t want to. My dad knew Clyde Hopkins from Y-12. He called up there and basically got me a job working in Paducah. I worked up there and worked in the gas diffusion plant in Paducah for one year as a custodian. We used to sweep out big process buildings. They called the bull gang. And you’d be real hot. And you’d have to sweep out these buildings – threw out sawdust. It’d take you an hour to go from one end to the other with about a 54-inch dust mop. You sweated. It was hard work every day. And I kind of liked it. But three months into that – the supervisor liked me a lot. He was a black supervisor named Mr. Thomas. He called me and said, “Bell, you’re off the bull gang. You’re going to be taking the men to the buildings every day and dropping them off and doing errands for me. You and Mr. Hollis will be my lead men.” I really enjoyed that. We got to pull into the cafeteria and eat during lunch and take the men to the building and everything. But one day during the wintertime – it was real cold. It snowed heavy up there. It’s real cold. It’s on the Ohio River. He said, “Bell, you’re driving.” I was always sitting in the passenger side. He said, “You’re in charge of taking the men to the building and everything today.” There’s another guy named Ashford – black guy from Oak Ridge. He was with us up there. And I said, “Ash, drive, I’m scared.” I told him I was scared to drive. I said, “I’m going to wreck this thing.” I got back that day. And Thomas found out that I let Ashford drive the van. He said, “Bell, I told you to drive it. He’s done wreck three lawnmowers. That’s why he’s over here at [inaudible].” He said, “I told you to drive.” I was still scared. We became good friends. I stayed there for a year. And they gave me a big party. He basically had a tear in his eye when I left. I didn’t really want to leave there ’cause I liked it. But I wanted to come over to Oak Ridge. Oak Ridge was my hometown. I told him one time, “If I ever get back to Oak Ridge, I’ll never leave again.” I talked to him sometimes even today and talk about how much I miss my hometown. I was probably homesick. I had never been away from home. Then I came back to Y-12 and got a job working the big shop for probably about five years. And I was on shift work. I was on two-shift rotation. And I’ll just be honest. I never really liked that job. I never enjoyed it much. It was in a machine shop. And I’d see older machinists on their machines. And I was a cleaner. I’d clean in the machine shop. But I didn’t like the shift rotation. And I really didn’t like it. It was dark in there. It wasn’t a good fit for me. I was making really good money. I had great benefits. But I wasn’t happy. Well, I’d gotten married during that and went through a divorce. That kind of set it in. I didn’t like my job. I’d gone through a divorce. I just basically quit. My dad, needless to say, was very disappointed in me for quitting a job that I guess most people would give their eyeteeth for. If I’d not gone through a divorce, I might not have quit that job. I probably wouldn’t. I may still be out there today. But somehow, things work out for us. And I ended up – the only time that I drew unemployment in my whole life was six months. They were building Physicians Plaza in 1984. And I said, well, I’ve got to have a job. I’ve left a good job. I’m going to have to have a job. So I went up to Physicians Plaza and got a custodial position – and was making just part-time. Within three months, I was over everybody there. I was over the whole building. I was making better money. I transferred over to the hospital. We got the contract. I was working for a contractor. I stayed up at Physicians Plaza and became friends with a lot a doctors – really enjoyed it ’cause I was pretty much my own boss. I hired, fired – did everything. But they had posted a school job in 1989 for head custodian at Glenwood Elementary school. And I said, “I’ve got a good resume”. I’m back on my feet again. I put in for the job and got the position of head custodian at Glenwood and worked there from ’90 to 2013 and enjoyed it tremendously. I worked for some great people. Howie Irwin was my first principal. And he’d grown up on Georgia Avenue. He paralleled my life. He did things I did many years earlier. I worked for Roger Toler for six years and Miss Goins for seven or eight years. And I had hired in with her. She was a teacher then. I sat on numerous boards. I was on the credit union board. I was on the search committee to elect the principal at Glenwood when Miss Goins there. It worked out really good for me. I was a lot better fit where I ended up than working at the plant. I’m not so sure that the plants – the fact that my dad was a supervisor and been in supervisory positions, there was a little bit of a stigma attached to what I was doing in comparison to what my father was doing. I think the Lord has a reason for where we end up and what we do. It ended up working out good for me.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me what you know about the Snow White Drive-In.
MR. BELL: Well, Snow White was one of my favorite places as a young teenager. I would say that Snow White and Burl Morgan’s Diner were my two favorite ’cause they were within walking distance of where I lived. I remember going into the Snow White. They had a cook there named Tom Reaves – older gentleman, real nice – always wore like a [inaudible] hat – one of those kitchen-type cap. I’d go in. And they’d be hollering, “Three on a meatloaf. One of the chicken and dumpling. Give me two on the ham, Tom.” They’d always holler out their food. I always wondered why they hollered it out. And I found later on that it’d been a teenage hangout. And when they went through the door, the curb girls would holler out when they walked in the door. So they kept that concept even after it was a family restaurant. I kind of knew Tom pretty well and got close to him. I’d go sit at the counter. And he could wait on me. He’d say, “What’d you need, young man?” And I’d tell him what I wanted. He’d just hand it behind him and still wait – simultaneously, he’d wait on the waitresses, too. He could fill in orders like – and I studied Tom later on and found out he had worked in the CCC camps during the war – you know – Roosevelt started the CCC camps. And he learned how to hone his skills and sling hash during that time. He was really an excellent person for that. He never drove. I found out he rode the bus – a Trailways bus to Oak Ridge from Knoxville and then walked across the Turnpike. The Sparks family – that later on I worked with Bill – had opened the Snow White. They owned other drive-ins throughout – they owned the Edgewood Steakhouse out at the end of Oak Ridge. They owned the Door on Clinton Highway and, I think, the Waldorf up in Gatlinburg. They owned a bunch of different restaurants. John Sparks, the oldest brother, was the original owner and then Bill. It was a neat place – down where Physicians Plaza was – big old, long counter down through there. Herb Sparks ran the grill – the other brother. He had tables sitting in front with big glass and everything – real cheap to eat there and pretty good food. I thought it was just kind of a neat place. I wish there was more places like that today.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You have a picture of Peacock Lodge before the Snow White.
MR. BELL: Yeah, I have a picture.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me a little history of what you know about that.
MR. BELL: Yeah, I have a picture. This is the Peacock Lodge. That’s what it opened up to – in probably early ’40s or ’43 or so. There’s an old car sitting out front of it. I think it’s kind of neat. It says Chicken in a Row up there at the top. This stayed that way for numerous years. Later on, the Peacock Lodge sold to Blue Circle. And I believe that it stayed the Blue Circle for a couple years ’til Blue Circle built across the street. And then it became the Snow White. I believe it was added on to – another building was added on – an insurance company or something. So these windows still remained. And it was longer when I was a kid. But that’s a picture of the old Snow White – just a neat place. And I’ve got another picture where I did an article. And there’s Tom Reaves cooking right behind the counter. This is when I wrote about all the old restaurants in Oak Ridge that we had – of course, Snow White probably being the most famous.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You have some other articles that you wrote a few years ago. What were they?
MR. BELL: I probably did 20 different articles. This is a picture remembering our old school days. And there’s Fred Brown that we talked about earlier – right there as a teacher – one of my favorite teachers. And this is basically an article about what we all remember about our school days. I talked to people from the early ’50s – all the way up to present about their time at the school. They were quite a bit different. But we all had some of the same memories. Then I have one about – this is called “Townsite and the Teenager” – about Jackson Square and the stories about the old Jackson Square and the Center Theater and the old bowling alley that used to sit up there – the Jackson Square and Taft Moody. That wasn’t there when I was a kid. That was right there where Jackson Square Pharmacy is now. And Dean’s Restaurant’s in there. And what’s interesting is – I don’t know if we can get that – that stack that goes up right there – when they started remodeling for Dean’s Restaurant, they took down the false ceiling tiles. And we found where that stack had been covered up after all these years. I thought that was a neat piece a history about Jackson Square.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Taft Moody ice cream was actually next door to Williams Drugstore. When Mr. McMahon bought the drugstore, it was a little malt shop for a while that expanded over into the –
MR. BELL: I think they did the remodel in ’65. Mr. McMahon said restaurant really wasn’t his thing. So he went ahead and just opened a gift shop in there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What’s the other photograph you’ve got of the little ice cream place?
MR. BELL: I don’t necessarily remember this. But I’ve talked to a lady I worked with. This was called the Igloo. And it was down somewhere – from where she remembered it – somewhere around where Mr. Gatti’s was – close in there where –
MR. HUNNICUTT: Downtown market area –
MR. BELL: Yeah, right in that area. This must be where the farmers market is. I remember seeing this. And I blew this up – where it says Oak Ridge football schedule. And I believe that’s about 1952 or ’53 – that schedule in the window. I do know what happened to this. When Oak Ridge – they started building Downtown in ’55, the person that owned this put it on a trailer and moved it up to Lafollette for a number of years. Loretta Mustin worked in here. And I’ve talked to her about the Igloo.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember where Lizz’s Market used to be there in the municipal building? The farmers market was right there close to that.
MR. BELL: Where would that be exactly today?
MR. HUNNICUTT: Right behind CVS Pharmacy and Long John’s – right in that area.
MR. BELL: She said she remembered seeing the Catholic Church. I think right here’s pretty interesting if I’ve got this – I found this the other day. It’s interesting. Oak Ridge won their first football championship in 1975 under the TSSAA. We had already won ’56, ’58, ’62,’61. But those were mythical champions. Under the official – even this right here in 1975 – we ended up playing Maplewood, which was Maplewood High School outta Nashville. And I went to that game. Of course, it was real cold – on Thanksgiving. But there’s two players that we played against. Emory ran the [inaudible], which didn’t feature one player. It featured small. They were dominant. But two players off of this team – E.J. Junior played for Alabama off a Maplewood. And there’s another guy up here – if I can remember – Preston Brown went on to play – I think he played pro ball, didn’t he? I believe he went on to the pros. We played against a team that was supposed to be – their record coming in was just unbelievable. We beat them pretty hands down for our first real state championship. I thought that was pretty interesting. And what I like about this is it lists everybody from the team. And I’ve got these from 1979 and ’80 championships for every team that participated in the TSSAA, which is kind of interesting. Clifford Smith that worked for the schools as a – he also worked at the credit union. You might know Clifford.
MR. HUNNICUTT: He was my art teacher.
MR. BELL: He was art teacher with Mr. Hamby. He’s a great artist. I didn’t never even think I was going to do a book. So what I did is I took a compilation of all the articles that I did. And we put it in book form. But I came up with the idea that me on that Schwinn bicycle as a kid, traveling throughout all of the places that I went as a kid. And he did a great job on that cover. Of course, you got the Oak Terrace, the Putt-Putt, the Snow White, [inaudible] football – old service road where Big Ed’s was – I used to go to that counter. And Jessie would fix me a bowl a chili and a cherry smash and a grilled cheese. You had your Morgan’s Diner. And [Inaudible] was still here. But it’s kind of neat. He did Skyway Drive-In, the Ridge, and the Blue Circle.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell us where Morgan’s Diner is today.
MR. BELL: Morgan’s Diner is a Chinese restaurant now. I think Betty’s her name – Magic Wok, I believe what’s they call that. Research on that – it was attached to the old Winder Building in Oak Ridge. It started out as Eric’s Diner. Well, Burl and Doc Morgan bought it from them. They also owned the Downtown Cab Company, too. That’s another job I guess I left out. I was probably the youngest cab driver in Oak Ridge. But I would go down – and most people young like me really wouldn’t go to places like that. It wasn’t a kid place. I’d go down – I probably had a car then. I think I just started driving. Burl would say, “Let me fix you a honey bun, son.” And he’d take the honey bun and put a little butter and put it on the grill for me – make me a hamburger. We got to be really good friends. I’d sit there and talk to him. He was just open during lunch and breakfast and close, and then he’d go drive a cab. He said, “You want to drive a cab.” I said, “Drive a cab. I’m a senior in high school. I said, “I’m working down at the drive-in.” He said, “Well you go down there and take your special chauffeur license, you can drive a cab.” I ended up driving a cab my senior year, part-time – you know – picking people up and taking them. I kind of enjoyed it. I still lived at home. We traded on nights. They had the flea market downtown then during Saturday. It was kind of another fun thing I did. I always liked Burl. Burl was a neat guy. I have fond memories of him. There was another guy that owned the cab company with him, too, named Wayne Paul. He was from Lake City. All these cab drivers had been former Oak Ridge bus drivers years ago – Ray Kirby and a bunch of them – Mr. Mashburn – I guess you remember him – Bud Mashburn. So they were down there. And I’m just a little boy. I was always scared of Wayne Paul. He was a big, old strong man. He was burly. He’d say mean things – or I thought they were. What’s funny about that is we’d set down there in the cars when we wasn’t driving. He really got to liking me a lot. We became close to him. I remember he said, “Come on with me.” And he’d take me inside in the Davis Brothers cafeteria. He’d push my tray through there. He got free food for advertising. He said, “He’s part a me.” He started buying my meals and stuff. By doing the cab driving, I got to know another guy down there that owned the old hardware store down there, R.B. Weymond. I got to trade some knives and stuff with him. R.B. was a fixture. Everybody in town knew R.B. I kind of got to grow up with these people. The diner down there today is a neat little place. They probably don’t seat over 20 people in there. But I’m glad it’s still here. I’m glad somebody’s got it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, it sure sounds like you’ve had a wonderful life here in Oak Ridge. I certainly thank you for letting me interview you. This interview will be a real pleasure for somebody to look at and know how Oak Ridge was in the ’60s and the ’70s.in town. Thank you very much for your time.
MR. BELL: Thank you so much. I enjoyed it.
[End of Interview]

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ORAL HISTORY OF DON BELL
Interviewed by Don Hunnicutt
Filmed by BBB Communications, LLC.
November 5, 2013
MR. HUNNICUTT: This interview is for the Center of Oak Ridge Oral History. The date is November 5, 2013. I am Don Hunnicutt in the studio of BBB Communications, LLC. 170 Randolph Road, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to take an oral history from Mr. Don Bell, 100 Panama Road, Oak Ridge Tennessee, about living in Oak Ridge. Don, please state your full name, place of birth, and date.
MR. BELL: My name is Don Alan Bell. And I reside at 100 Panama Road here in Oak Ridge. And I was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, on September 16 of 1955.
MR. HUNNICUTT: State your father’s name and place of birth and the date, if you recall.
MR. BELL: My father was named Harold Lee Bell. And he was born September 12, 1923, in Corinth, Mississippi.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Your mother’s maiden name and place of birth and date.
MR. BELL: My mother’s name was Mary Marie Hathcock Bell. And she was also born in Corinth, Mississippi, in January of 1928.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What are the names of your grandparents on your father’s side?
MR. BELL: My father’s side is William Mitchell Bell. And he is also from Corinth, Mississippi. And my grandmother is Edna Clyde Bell, also born in Corinth, Mississippi.
MR. HUNNICUTT: On your mother’s side of the family –
MR. BELL: Eller J. Hathcock was my mother’s mother and William Odell Hathcock was her father.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember what either one of your grandfathers did for a living?
MR. BELL: Yes. My grandfather on my mother’s side ran an Army surplus store in Corinth, Mississippi, for many years. He also had worked as a pharmacist in Tyler, Texas, at one time. But he retired doing the Army surplus work in Corinth.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me a little bit about your father’s school history.
MR. BELL: My father attended Corinth High School. I think he graduated in 1941. He went into the Army Air Corps and served during World War II. I think he served the duration of the war, which was a couple years plus six months. He was a gunner instructor stateside during the war down in Biloxi, Mississippi, where he was located. He served in Germany for the duration of the war and came back to the United States after that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall where your father met your mother?
MR. BELL: Yes, in Corinth. He had dated her previous to going into the service. He knew about her and dated her a little bit. He always knew that that was the woman that he wanted to marry. When he got out of the service, he went home. And they got married pretty soon after that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you have any sisters and brothers?
MR. BELL: I have two older brothers. I have Greg Bell that worked at Y-12 here in Oak Ridge and just retired. I have another brother that’s two years older: Dennis Bell, he’s a nuclear engineer. And he worked at a lot of the plants – Savannah River, in Richland, Washington. He is also retired and lives in Knoxville, Tennessee.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Why did your parents come to Oak Ridge?
MR. BELL: My grandfather came here by himself. There wasn’t many jobs to be had during that time in the South. Most people had to leave to get a good job. I think they ran ads in the local papers throughout the South. He had worked up in Seattle, Washington in the aircraft factory. He had worked in numerous places throughout the country. But a good job was hard to find. I think he was hired in 1944 and worked at the powerhouse at K-25, here in Oak Ridge.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall how the family got to Oak Ridge?
MR. BELL: I think my dad actually drove my grandfather up here to get the job – or some of my relatives did. I don’t know if it was my father. Transportation was hard to find at that time. He might’ve even taken the train. I don’t recall. But he got here and didn’t bring the family up here. He thought it was temporary. His wife and my aunts also stayed down in Mississippi during that time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How long did your grandfather work at the powerhouse in K-25?
MR. BELL: That was his total duration of his work time at K-25. He worked there from 1944. His retirement date at K-25 is November 1, 1962.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you know what his job duties were?
MR. BELL: They didn’t talk much. I know Daddy said he was a millwright. And I’m not familiar with a lot of that type a work. But it was with his hands. He was just a hard working-type guy. They had also owned a country store in Corinth. He had done a lot of different things. Like I said, he did have a trade. He was qualified to come up here and – like I say, a good job was really difficult to find during that time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: This was your grandfather.
MR. BELL: This is my grandfather on my father’s side.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When did your father come to Oak Ridge?
MR. BELL: My father came up here. I think my aunts – Daddy’s two sisters – had come up here during that same time. And Dad came up in 1953 and got a job at K-25.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was his job duty there?
MR. BELL: I think Dad worked basically in machining. I think it was inspection. He was an inspector. I think he got some of his trade as a welder right after the war. Dad had gone up to Groton, Connecticut and worked for Electric Boat welding submarines. He also went down to Apalachicola, Florida and worked at welding, too. He had some experience in the service and also experience working other places. I think he also worked at San Diego, California in an aircraft factory. Even during that time, they traveled – and in Memphis, Tennessee, too in an aircraft factory.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did he stay at K-25 his whole job career?
MR. BELL: No, he didn’t. During the early ’60s, they thought there was going to be a layoff. And we were living down on Tucker Road at that time. I was just a little boy. They came and interviewed. And about five men got a job up at Ellsworth Air Force Base in quality control, working as a subcontractor for the government – for the US military at Ellsworth in Rapid City. He stayed there one year. That job played out, so to speak. And then he went to Chico, California, and worked at an Air Force base there and worked one more year. I believe that was 1961 and ’62 because we came back to Oak Ridge in ’63. He was going to be transferred to Connecticut if he stayed with it. He was making a lot more money than he would be coming back to Y-12. He’d known Vern Gritzner at K-25 and Mr. Bill Oden. He called back ’cause he didn’t want to move a family again – had three kids. And it was hard enough to pack everything up and move every year. So he knew that to have stability that he would come back to Y-12. He took about a half a job pay cut. At his age, he was making really good money. He was doing well. He was equivalent on the chart to even a general at that time in the civilian side of what he was doing. He said it was very interesting work up there where they had the missiles and launchers up under the silos. But he said he needed to come back and get some stability and live in Oak Ridge. We came back and moved to Malvern Road and lived there until he retired and until he passed away in 2005.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What’d you recall about your father’s schooling?
MR. BELL: From what I understand – I’d gone to Corinth and numerous times had talked to people that knew him and said that he had graduated – it was a smaller school of a population probably 12 to 15 thousand people – that he was really at the top of his class. He was very intelligent, very articulate. His family was not a real educated family. But when the draft came, he had to go into the service. His plans were to go to Ole Miss or to Mississippi State and get an education. But Dad went into the service. He was kind of a self-made person. He progressed heavily at the plant. He moved up at Y-12 from I’d say starting as a foreman to general foreman to a department head, which is pretty hard – inspection department. He did really well in that area.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about your mother’s schooling?
MR. BELL: My mother graduated from Corinth High School in ’28. My mother was a homemaker pretty much during the time we were all young. Of course, she was a very pretty woman and modeled in her younger years and worked in numerous dress shops throughout Oak Ridge and Knoxville and had worked at Samuel’s and worked at Four Oaks Fashions and numerous dress shops. She was into the fashion world. She loved clothes and people and enjoyed selling clothes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did the family first live when they first came to Oak Ridge?
MR. BELL: I believe, if I’m not mistaken, they lived in an apartment up on Waddell Circle – up near Highland View for a short period of time. And then they moved over to Nevada Circle in Woodland and lived beside the Oden’s over there, which he had known – he knew Mr. Oden.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Are your brothers older than you?
MR. BELL: They are. I’ve got a brother we call Greg. His real name’s Harold Gregory Bell. He’s four years older – a’69 graduate of Oak Ridge High School. I have another brother, Dennis. And he’s a ’67 graduate of Oak Ridge High School.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were they born in Mississippi?
MR. BELL: They were born in Mississippi. I was born in ’55, and they moved here in ’53. I’m the only son that was born in Oak Ridge. I was actually born in Knoxville. But we resided in Oak Ridge.
MR. HUNNICUTT: The first home that the family lived in – Mother and Father and two boys, is that correct?
MR. BELL: That’s correct. It would’ve been up on Waddell Circle.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of housing is that on Waddell Circle?
MR. BELL: I believe it was K apartments.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That’s basically a two-bedroom –
MR. BELL: It’s a four-complex unit. The L’s are two complex.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember the address of that first one?
MR. BELL: I don’t recall it. I wasn’t born during that time. I know about where it was located. But I don’t know the address.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me a little bit about your school history. What was your first school that you attended?
MR. BELL: My first school in kindergarten was Elm Grove. We lived on Tucker Road. The next year would’ve been ’61. And we moved to Rapid City, South Dakota. And I attended Pinedale Elementary in Rapid City. Then we moved the next year to Chico, California. I don’t recall the name of that elementary. We moved during that half a year and came back to Oak Ridge and lived up on West Outer for a real short period of time – just an apartment. And I attended Highland View for a half a year.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What grade would that be?
MR. BELL: That would’ve been second grade. Because of the move that we had, we bought a house on Michigan Avenue. They came to me during the summer and said because of moving twice at such an early age, I got really behind in school. I’m sure that’s one of the reasons Dad wanted to have some stability. I had to repeat second grade again at Pine Valley. But nobody knew me. It was like I was going into second grade. It wasn’t a big issue or anything. I remember during the summer my mother coming to me and telling me I was going to have to repeat second grade. And it bothered me a little bit during that time. I actually needed more than that. I really was way behind the other students ’cause Oak Ridge was kind of a hard system. They wanted the best. And I needed to repeat it. It was the best thing that probably happened to me.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you attend Pine Valley all your elementary school days?
MR. BELL: I did. I attended Pine Valley and had some really good teachers up there. Of course, Landis Pullham was principal. I had Miss Arnold – I think for fourth grade, Miss McGhee, Miss McNutt, Miss White and had – just a really good school. I have fond memories of it today. When I retired from the Oak Ridge system, I told the people there that I was standing in the same gym that I retired from Oak Ridge School System with that I started out with in elementary school.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was class like during those days in Pine Valley?
MR. BELL: Working in an elementary – which I worked in later – it was very strict. But they wanted to teach. It was very uniform. During Christmas, they’d bring everybody up into the foyer and put a piano out and sing Christmas songs. We had numerous plays during that time. We had a great Y after school where you – Mr. Hicks was our PE teacher. We’d play baseball or basketball or football and played other schools during that time. We got to attend different events. It was a great school. During the summertime, of course, we had the Recreation Department. And we were able to have summer programs at the school, too, that we really liked. We had a morning session and an evening session – a coach and the coaches – and provided by Oak Ridge Recreation Department – just a great thing. We could come and go as we pleased. We didn’t have to worry about [inaudible] during that time. People didn’t worry about their kids as much. Everybody watched out for them. Even older kids would watch out for the younger ones. It was a great time. It was a good school. I have fond memories.
And as far as I’m concerned, I don’t really ever want to see it torn down. There were three schools that were identical – of course, that’s Elm Grove and Cedar Hill and Pine Valley. And Pine Valley’s the only remaining school – it is in the school administration building now. As I go in it sometimes, I close my eyes. And I have vivid memories of – can almost see myself at a desk or walk down the little stairs that goes down to the second area. There used to be a mural up over the – and it’s not there anymore. But I kind of still see it – just a great school. And I remember all my teachers.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you walk to school each day?
MR. BELL: I did. I rode my bicycle a lot of times, as I got older. That’s another thing that’s really interesting. We had path – it was interesting how they set it up. On the left side of Michigan Avenue – I was the last street that went to Pine Valley. The next street up was Maple Lane. And everything to the right, starting at the bottom, went to Cedar Hill. So there was only four or five streets that went to Pine Valley. And we all cut through the woods ’cause we were closer to the school. And we used to kind of kid the other kids – we’d call them cheater hill – Cedar Hill – they call them cheater hill. But the Pine Valley kids stuck with the Pine Valley kids. The Cedar Hill kids stuck with the Cedar Hill kids. There were kids everywhere. Every street had 10-15 kids. Everywhere you went there was children during that time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: About how far was the house from the Pine Valley School?
MR. BELL: Less than a quarter mile. You walked around the block. And you could almost see the back of Pine Valley from our street when the trees weren’t covering the wooded area. I remember vividly one thing that’s interesting. I’d got a Schwinn stingray bicycle sometime around ’66-’67. And that was really a neat thing – got it from the old fix-it shop here in Oak Ridge. I’d always begged my daddy to get a Schwinn bicycle. And he said, “I’m not going to get that.” He said, “You can get on Murray’s just as good from Western Auto. You’re not going to get a stingray.” I could just taste one. That was a big thing as a kid. On Christmas Day, of course, I got one – walked in, and it was one of the happiest times. I remember riding that bicycle. We’d bear walk them. We’d lift them up. We had slicks on the back. I’d go down through that path. And we’d just kind of fly down through there. And there was a big root that went across into the path. And when we hit that big root, we’d take a jump up over that root – you know – give us a big lift over to the next. A bunch of us would be riding down to the playground. We’d ride up and down, go eat and come back. Many years later, that path’s kind of grown up. But you can still go down through there. One day I was walking down through there, many years later, and looked down. And I saw that root again. And it brought back those memories of me as a child, jumping that root. It’s still there. Those kinds of things are set in my mind. I have a love for things like that and seeing things that we had during that time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did they have the safety patrol at Pine Valley.
MR. BELL: We did have safety patrol.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about that.
MR. BELL: Well, it was just an organization that was set up to make sure everybody was safe. And they stood in the halls. They had a strap with a badge that went over. They would make sure we got to out classes and people were safe. Sometimes teachers stood with them, too. I wasn’t in the safety patrol. But I remember it very well.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What’d you remember about how you dressed when you went to school? What’d you wear?
MR. BELL: During my elementary school years, we had to dress in basically dress shoes, nice shirt, pair a slacks. We pretty much dressed up. As it progressed into the ’60s – of course, that was the early ’60s – and into the late ’60s and ’70s – by the time I got to high school, I looked at my brother’s annual. And they were still dressing in ties and shirts. But we were through a period where I guess it’s very liberal ’cause we just kind of wore T-shirts and blue jeans – pretty much in high school, what we wanted. I think through junior high, we still had to dress pretty much. But it changed over a period to where you pretty much could be liberal in your dress. And there wasn’t a dress code in high school. I guess that would’ve been in the early ’70s.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember any particular plays or events at Pine Valley that kind of stands out in your mind?
MR. BELL: I was in one play. It was about the Cherokee Indians. And I can remember having just a few lines. I wasn’t much into that at that time. Everybody had to be in the play. I said something about I am the chief. Or I am a brave or something like that. I had my little headband on and everything. Miss White put that on.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have any favorite teachers at Pine Valley?
MR. BELL: I guess Miss McNutt would’ve been one of my favorites. I had one that was very special to me. Like I said, I struggled in my elementary years by getting so far behind. And Oak Ridge started a new concept about my sixth grade year. And it was called team teaching. It’s where they opened up four classrooms. And you had a homeroom. You could see all the classes. But you had homeroom in one. But you might have your reading over with another teacher. You might have your history with another. You moved around through that. At the end of the day, you come back to your homeroom. And we could all see each other. So you had a pod of three or four different teachers. And that was a concept where if you were low in one area, maybe you worked with this teacher. And they’d take the higher students and kind of put them up there. Working in elementary later on, they don’t do it the same way anymore. The way they do it now is the kids will leave and go to their classes like that.
But that really helped me. That was a teacher that was very special. Her name was Joan Jablonski. And she was the one that instilled in me that I could do things again. I remember before that time, I asked a question – they brought one TV. They only had one big, old black and white TV. And they would roll it into one room. I remember we had a prime minister come into America during that time from Russia to visit. And I was really scared to ask questions. Maybe you don’t think you’re very smart, so you just don’t say a whole lot. You kind of just sit in the background. But she told me that no question’s dumb. Any question you ask is a good thing. I can still, to this day, remember raising my hand kind of shy-like. And I said, “Why is it that when the Russian prime minister comes to America – if we don’t like Russia, why do we treat him so well?” She said, “That’s a great question.” She explained it diplomatically – probably at that time – that when our president goes over there, we treat them with respect. She gave me my first A. I hadn’t had an A – we started getting grade letters maybe in fifth grade. She taught me math. I was really struggling hard in math. I remember taking a test under her and getting my first A and how that made me feel – and instilling that in me that I can do attitudes. I can remember taking that paper – I’d never had an A in my life – and running back home through the woods to show it to my mother and dad that I got an A.
MR. HUNNICUTT: If I remember right, they used to use U for unsatisfactory and S for satisfactory before then.
MR. BELL: They sure did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was the final grade level at Pine Valley when you attended?
MR. BELL: It was sixth grade. Like I say, if it hadn’t been for Miss Jablonski, I don’t know that I would’ve made it through high school because I was so far behind. But she helped me so much. I didn’t have a problem in junior high. I didn’t have a problem in high school. I wasn’t in the higher classes. I was probably somewhere in the middle. But she told me I could do anything I set my mind to do. And many years – she left Oak Ridge School System. She was a very young teacher. She had taught at Scarboro. They closed Scarboro School. I always wanted to find her. I wrote a book a few years ago and put her in one of my articles. And I searched, and I searched, and I searched. And I finally was able to find her – and she had just retired as a teacher the year before – and told her what she meant to me. That was a very special thing.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I’d say it was special to her as well. Do you remember who the principal was at Pine Valley when you were there?
MR. BELL: Landis Pullham was principal.
MR. HUNNICUTT: During the summer days when you were in elementary school – during each year of school – what did you do in the summer for fun?
MR. BELL: Like I say, we had the summer programs. We’d basically go in the morning session. My brother was always an early person. He’d get down there before I would. They had checkers and chess. He’d be sitting on these picnic tables. And we had tetherball. We just had so many things you could do. You could sit around with your pals. You rode your bike. You might go up to the store up above Pine Valley and get you some candy or a Coke or whatever. What I can remember the most about it is the summers were so vividly – you were young. And everything was bright to you. Your whole world was built around your school. If we didn’t do that, the mothers – almost stayed home during that time. I remember station wagons were a big thing at that time. They didn’t have the vans or anything. Maybe some of the mothers like Miss Bomar – this little girl that lived behind us – she’d gather all us kids up and take us over on Clinton Highway and get us homemade ice cream. They had homemade peach ice cream. We went down to the Lost Sea sometime. That was big stuff to us to get to go anywhere. Even going to Knoxville at that time was big. Your whole world was your neighborhood. And venturing out like that was just really neat. Riding your bicycle – we could take off and ride through Oak Ridge if we wanted to. Like I said, about five or six guys – we might take off and ride our bikes all day long. We might not come home ’till our daddies got off work at 5 o’clock. It was just a great time. I think I primarily stayed around those playgrounds – me and my brother did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was the ice cream place on Clinton Highway you referred to – was that Wallace’s?
MR. BELL: Uh-huh, it was Wallace’s.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I remember that – up on top the hill above where the K-mart and all that is today – on the right, if I remember right.
MR. BELL: Then there was my mother – of course, they didn’t just go to take us to get ice cream. There was a shop called the All-mart – keep going down Clinton Highway – it’s the Expo Center now. That was kind of the first discount store in our area during that time – called it All-mart. In Oak Ridge at that time, I don’t think we had much. We had Kings down here. We might’ve had Howards or whatever it was called over there – maybe a couple – but that was the big one on Clinton Highway.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Value Mart –
MR. BELL: Right, we had the Value Mart, of course, at Jackson Square.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you went up to Pine Valley shopping center above the school, what’d you remember that being like? Describe that as best you can remember it.
MR. BELL: During my early years, of course, I got my hair cut by Mr. Breedan up there and had a barbershop. Mr. Bass had the drugstore. Of course, there’s a little grocery store there and, I think, a cleaners. Of course, during my early years, I went to school one morning and looked up there, and it burnt down. It burnt to the ground. And then they rebuilt it into a different structure. That was early in my years. People still had the barbershop. It was kind built the same way. But it was a metal-type building then – still there. I remember Value Mart – a while ago – an interesting story about a man in the day that I think so much of – Mr. Storey was assistant manager at Value Mart. I remember one time I went down into the salvage there downstairs – they had toys and stuff. I had some pocket change – didn’t have much money during that time. I said, “Jerry, how much is this football right here?” And I just pulled it out of a bag. And he said, “Well, how much you got there, son.” And he counted my change. He took a pen and marked that football just exactly where I could buy it with the change that I had. He was a special person. I never forgot that. I told him that today and also put that in the article that I’d wrote. Like I said, most people watched out for you or cared about the kids. He didn’t have to do that. I wanted that football. He was going to make sure I had it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I think that anybody that lived in Oak Ridge that visited the Value Mart remembered Jerry Storey.
MR. BELL: Special man –
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you collect lightening bugs and sell lightening bugs when you were growing up?
MR. BELL: No, I never really did that. I did probably catch some of them. I don’t remember people selling them.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you deliver the newspaper?
MR. BELL: My middle brother had the routes. I always wanted one. But I was kind of in between people. By the time I got older, I would go with my brother’s route. He had a Sentinel route – Mr. Yourbury – he used to pick up papers down at Snow White. Mr. Yourbury was, I guess, the manager for Oak Ridge area. We’d pick up and go on his routes with him. And I’d follow along and help him sometimes – or even had a [Oak] Ridger route later on and help him collect or something like that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember what Mr. Yourbury’s first name was?
MR. BELL: I really don’t. I just remember Mr. Yourbury.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I think that’s all we ever knew him as. He had that route manager job for many years in Oak Ridge. Did you ever collect Coke bottles?
MR. BELL: I did do that. I’d collect Coke bottles and take them up and sell them to the grocery stores and get my – I don’t know what they paid back then, but it wasn’t a whole lot a money.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Five cents a bottle, maybe –
MR. BELL: It was a lot to us.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I don’t know whether you did this or not. On the bottom of Coke bottles, they used to have the city where they were bottled. We used to play a game called Faraway. You’d pick a bottle. And the one that had the farthest bottle away would have to buy the Cokes. Did you ever play that?
MR. BELL: No, I never played. I do remember looking on the bottoms. I will tell you one that’s kind of fun – talking about Coke bottles – ’cause I collect them now – I collect a lot a stuff now. There was a bottle that come out sometime in the mid-’60s – it could’ve been ’64. The name of the drink was Pommac. And all the kids wanted a Pommac because it looked like beer. We thought we were grownup. It was a soft drink. But it had the color of beer. We thought we were cool ’cause we were drinking a Pommac. That didn’t stay very long. Pommac wasn’t around too long. People during that time will definitely remember it. To tell you the truth, it tasted awful.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I can’t remember. But did they have home milk delivery?
MR. BELL: We got our milk from Avondale.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Delivered right to the door, if I remember right.
MR. BELL: They did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How do you remember Christmastime when you were still going to elementary school? What do you remember about Christmas at home?
MR. BELL: It was during the Santa Claus time – we was young – we opened in the morning. Later on, we had our Christmas presents on Christmas Eve. And the story on that bicycle deal – I guess that was the best Christmas. It was probably the Christmas of ’67. In most cases, I was kind of an inquisitive kid. I’d go in there at night when I thought my daddy was asleep. And I’d take me a little something out. I couldn’t wait ’till Christmas. I’d look in there and find out what I’d had – I’d already know. They kind of figured I was doing that at Christmas. The deal on the bicycle was – I didn’t get a whole lot that Christmas Eve. And I was real disappointed. My brothers got a lot. I didn’t get much. I think it was that Saturday morning after Christmas, my dad said, “We got to go over to your Papa’s.” He said, “Greg’s coming with us.” My middle brother said, “We’ll go over to Papa’s and eat breakfast.” Like I say, I was disappointed. They left me and said, “You’re going to stay over at your mammy and Papa’s. And we’re going to come pick you up. We got to go do something.” So they come got me about an hour or two later and went back over to the house – walked back into the house. I looked down through there, and there’s that Schwinn deluxe stingray sitting in the living room – brand-new. And I mean, I was excited. It was Christmas Day that I got to ride it all up and down through there. I was so excited. I’ll never forget that Christmas. They fooled me. I fool them, they fool me.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did it seem like your brothers would get more than you did at Christmastime?
MR. BELL: Yeah, but they got different things. They were quite a bit older than I was. They would start getting more clothes. I don’t think they made a whole lot a difference. I was never like that too much. Me and my middle brother were closer. They got us some walkie-talkies one year where we’d set up there and talk. He’d go down the street. And we’d talk. We thought that was so cool at that time to be able to talk just down the street. There wasn’t a whole lot of that. We weren’t too jealous of each other. My oldest brother was more serious than my middle brother and I. He was already working on his education. He was such a distance in part ’cause we moved back there in ’63. And he graduated high school in ’67. I wasn’t real close to my oldest brother ’cause the fact he was so much older than I was. All I know is when he left, I got my own bedroom. My brother moved into the other one.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have to wear some of your older brothers’ clothes?
MR. BELL: I did. I used some of my middle brother’s clothes. But most of the time – during the time school started, they had a little budget. And they’d get us all some new clothes for school.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ever go grocery shopping with your mother?
MR. BELL: I did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where would she go mostly?
MR. BELL: My mother liked French’s Market down there. It was a new – French’s sat down right in front of the hospital. I have fond memories of it. It was one of the neatest grocery stores. It was made so different. It had all this colored glass in it. It was an octagon-looking building. The bags that they put the groceries in were colorful. They had French’s Market on it. They had all these different colors on the bags – neat experience to go in there. I’d go in there with my mother. You just drove up. And they’d put your groceries in your car back then. Later on I talked to the lady – Miss Branch – her daughter, Kay Lynn. I was telling her that was a neat building – I’d got a picture of French’s. And she said, “Well, the reason that was built that way – Daddy always loved the circus. When he built his grocery store, he even on the roof kind of made it looked tiered. He built it to look like a circus. And I never knew that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: It had a rounded top.
MR. BELL: It had kind of a rounded top. Most people wouldn’t build it that way ’cause it’s somewhat wasted space. But it was real unique looking; I remember that. I thought it was real neat.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember when French’s had their little market on what we call Tri-County Boulevard now, back by the railroad?
MR. BELL: I remember what it was. And the Carefree Drive-In Theater set behind it. We didn’t venture too much out of Oak Ridge during that time. But I remember it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: They ventured into Oak Ridge. I believe that location was about where the physical therapy building is now.
MR. BELL: It is about that same area.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you listen to radio much growing up?
MR. BELL: WATO when we were young – listened to football games. And, of course, WNOX in Knoxville was the teenage station. I remember they’d say WNOX 99’ers. We was listening to AM. And at night, of course, when you could get the stations like WOWO, Fort Wayne, Indiana; WLS, Chicago; WCFL; Chicago; and KDA, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – we’d listen to all those big stations, especially WLS ’cause they – top 40 – and you could get them at night real good. They went all over the nation.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember a radio program coming outta Nashville – I believe John R – Randy’s Record March. Do you remember the name of that?
MR. BELL: I don’t remember that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: It really came out of Gallatin, Tennessee on Friday and Saturday nights. It was one of those programs that would go way off if the skip was right. It catered to the military. You could barely get it in Oak Ridge at certain times. And other times it was really good. They played all kinds a different music that was popular then.
MR. BELL: We used to listen to Casey Kasem’s top 40. He was the person that was kind of big DJ nationwide. They’d have top 40 on Sunday. Back then, it was country and western music, which we’d say we didn’t listen to. Sometimes we would. But we would never admit to it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did the family have a TV?
MR. BELL: Yeah, Dad had some old black and whites downstairs. I think it was a Philco. And we had some portable TVs upstairs. But they weren’t color. I don’t think we had a color TV ’till way up in there sometime. I wanted 26 because they had some –
MR. HUNNICUTT: Channel 26 –
MR. BELL: I wanted 26. My dad – you’d have to know him – he’d say, “Two channels is all you need. Ain’t nothing but trash on that other one, anyway.” He wouldn’t put an antenna up. And you couldn’t get 26. It was real hard to pick up in Oak Ridge. He finally did put an antenna up where we could get 26. I remember watching the TV. The TVs wasn’t even very good back then. You’d be watching and all of a sudden, it’d start rolling. Right in the middle of a good scene, it’d start rolling. I think my brother would hit the top of it or something. On the rabbit ears – to get 26, we had to take tinfoil out and do something. It’d come in better if you wrapped tinfoil around it or something. I remember that we could get Chattanooga every once in a while. I think it was Channel 9 or something. They had Shock Theater on Saturday. Every once in a while, it’d be real snowy. And we’d set that antenna and put that stuff where we could – just enough to watch that Shock Theater out of Chattanooga. It just depended on how the weather was if we could get it. I wanted 26 bad. But he finally did get it. But it was many years later.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember when you’d turn the TV on, and you’d see the test pattern on the screen before the channels ever came on?
MR. BELL: Yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: We used to sit and watch the test pattern. That’s how TV was in those days.
MR. BELL: I remember Channel 12 here. I don’t know what it was called back then – Channel 11 or something. But I remember when they first got cable in Oak Ridge. People got cable then just to get better reception. It wasn’t necessarily the channels. They’d run it down through there, and you’d see the weather. They’d run it back, and you’ll see the time and temperature. They’d just scan it back and forth. That’s all you had on that station. There wasn’t no real program. That’s all that was on there. And I think they’d put community events up there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was the family car when you were young and in elementary school?
MR. BELL: I believe Daddy had a ’63 Pontiac or something like that. In ’65, he bought a 1965 Chevrolet Impala. And that was the family car – red Chevrolet Impala. And my brother was delivering papers on Sunday morning and backed up into a fire hydrant. Needless to say, he didn’t get to drive it anymore. That was a really nice looking car. It was the first – what I call really nice car we had during the time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your family have just one car?
MR. BELL: Just had one – and Daddy carpooled. Mother would get the car certain days of the week. He finally did get another junk car. You just didn’t have two or three cars. People didn’t even have cars. Maybe they called cabs or something like that. Most people had one. That’s all you had.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you use the bus system in Oak Ridge very much?
MR. BELL: I did. I used the bus tickets, bus system, sure did. I remember coming up through Michigan Avenue. And the bus driver’s name was Mary – black woman and real nice. I remember they were old city buses transferred into school buses. There were times – I could get out and walk faster when we’d come up Michigan Avenue. That thing just vibrated. We’d be going up through there. And it just almost wouldn’t make it up there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember the color of the buses?
MR. BELL: They were yellow. But they had been red. They were old city buses.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about when you went to junior high. Where did you go?
MR. BELL: I always wanted to go to Jefferson. That was up on the hill. And the year that I started Jefferson – they opened a new Jefferson – 1968. And it was full a mud. It was just opening up. I didn’t particularly like the new Jefferson. There wasn’t windows in it. You had very few little windows in it. It was a nice school. My brothers both had gone to the old Jefferson. And I just thought that was a neat school. It had a big auditorium and had a lot a windows – press box was right there built onto the school. They tore that down. I attended all three years at the new Jefferson. We referred to it then as the new Jefferson.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you said the old on the hill, what are you referring to?
MR. BELL: Well, basically, it’d been the old high school. When they built the new high school in, I think, early ’50s, they turned into Jefferson Junior High School. I know that studying back and doing some research that Jefferson really was where Robertsville was. And there was only one junior high. When they built the new high school, they turned that to Robertsville. And then they moved Jefferson up on the hill. We had two junior highs after that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was Jefferson relocated? Where was the new school?
MR. BELL: It was built on Fairbanks Road over in Emory Valley.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And they’ve changed it now to –
MR. BELL: It’s called Jefferson Middle School – Jefferson Junior High when I was there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you attended the new school – you were talking about a lot a mud ’cause it was new – what’d you discover different at junior high than elementary school?
MR. BELL: More freedom, of course. You went to your classes where you had one class. I always didn’t like elementary ’cause you had to sit there all day long in the same class – so we went to junior high – if you didn’t particularly like a teacher, you didn’t have to stay with her but an hour and you went to another one. I thought it was more freedom. It was definitely a different learning experience. We actually had a lot a racial problems at the time that I went. There was that time during the Martin Luther King assassination and everything. They had to place some guards up in the hall. I never had any problem. But a lot a people did. I seemed to get along with everybody pretty well – really never had any problem in school. I don’t think I got into but two fights in my whole life – and didn’t want to get in those. I lost one and won one. I guess I’m even for the fighting in my life, which I didn’t like to do. One thing I can remember, Nick Orlando – of course, being our gym teacher – paddling us all. He was a neat guy. He liked kids. But he’d run us. We didn’t have a track. So he’d run us around that big drive – go all the way down on Fairbanks Road and run back up to the front. And I used to dread it. It’d be cold. We’d put our shorts on and have to run. I never did like that too much. I enjoyed the inside stuff in the new gym. I liked the new gym they had.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were students required to take showers during gym class?
MR. BELL: We were.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So that was something new to you.
MR. BELL: That was new.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did they have shop classes at the new Jefferson?
MR. BELL: I had shop. I had – what’s his name – I could think of it I wasn’t sitting here trying to think of it. We had a neat shop. We even had a program set up where we started making things and selling them. We’d make certain woodworking projects. Everybody’d make a certain thing. And then we’d put them together. And we actually sold them to the community. His name was Brent Davis. He was our shop teacher. He wasn’t there too many years. But he helped coach, too. I remember that he had an expression. And if he didn’t like something and we was trying to pull something over on him, he’d say, “Get outta here.” We had some good teachers there, too. I liked my junior high and high school. I guess out of all of them, probably my junior high and high school was my favorite.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What were some of the classes you took at Jefferson?
MR. BELL: One of my favorites was Mr. Foster. He taught history. He took us on fieldtrips and stuff. We got to go to Fort Loudon and look at it where the dam had covered the Indians. He was a real nice teacher. Of course, Mr. Hayes was a teacher. I had to get up and give my first oral report. I think I did pretty well with it. That was a scary moment. He later on became principal at Robertsville. I had that. I think I had Miss Branum. And Miss Cherry was a teacher in science. I don’t remember all of them. I remember the ones that I’m sure that I liked. I enjoyed the junior high years. We got to go to sock hops. We called them sock hops. We had our little dances. And Connie, a friend of mine, that helped me with my TV show we do here – she was kind of somebody I liked to dance with. We used to dance and have a good time. Then we had the ballgames. Of course, you got to start attending junior high games and stuff. We got to do so much more. When you got up in the different things, there was events and stuff. If you went to the junior high football games – I don’t think we even watched football games. We’d walk around all the time – walk around the track, talk. You got to start seeing girls. I remember I had a girlfriend in junior high school. Her name was Debbie. I guess you call it dates. They’d pick us up and take us. She moved away. Into my ninth-grade year, her daddy passed away. She moved to Alabama. When I went to high school, I lost my girlfriend. Everybody had theirs. I had to try to find another one. I got back in contact with her a few years ago. She lives in Alabama – and talk to her every once in a while. I’ve got a picture of her with a little chain I gave her in junior high school. Like I say, it was a neat period. That was ’68 through 71.
MR. HUNNICUTT: During the summertime when you were in junior high, did you work – have any jobs?
MR. BELL: I didn’t have a job until late junior high – ninth grade, I helped my brother with a paper route. I went to work at the Skyway Drive-In Theater my ninth-grade year. When you’re able to work – officially, I think it’s 15 and a half or 16. I don’t know. But I went to work for Roy Pimmerton out at Skyway and worked there all through high school – worked in the concession stand making popcorn and hotdogs and Cokes. He paid us all a $6.00 a night. Sometimes I owed him ’cause I ate so much food. If you had to go write down what you got – so we’d write it on the back of a thing. And he charged us half price. Sometimes it’d get down to where you owed him money. You’d have to go to the next week if you took a date or something out there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was the Skyway Drive-In located?
MR. BELL: It’s located on Illinois Avenue where they – basically where the McDonald’s set and the shopping center – I guess that would be the Kroger – K-mart shopping center out there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How many nights a week did you work there?
MR. BELL: During the summertime, I’d probably work four – maybe Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Through the school year, I’d work on Friday and Saturday nights and sometimes Sunday.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember the bingo games they used to have in between the –
MR. BELL: I think that’s probably before I did it. They didn’t have that then. What I do remember is we had horror-rama movies. We’d show three horror pictures. Or we’d have Elvis-rama’s, which we’d show three Elvis movies. I do remember the movie that drew the best during that period. Most of the movies had already showed at indoor theaters. So they would come to us maybe a month later. And we showed Love Story at the Drive-In. For some reason, it was packed every night. They were lined up down to Illinois getting in. We showed another movie that I think it was called Vanishing Point; that was a big hot-rod-type movie. And it drew a lot a people. There were certain movies that were just packed. And all I could remember during that time is just how fast and how many people during the intermission would come in and buy food. Normally we waited on people one-on-one. During the intermission, we’d set it up different with the cash register down to the end. And two people would handle the hamburgers and the hotdogs and the fries and another handle the drinks and the popcorn and another’d be on the cash register. And we sold cigarettes and stuff there. So they would come down the line and get theirs. And I always handled the popcorn. All I can remember is how much I popped. You could pop and box it and box it and seem like you still run out. You had to just continue to never stop. We just did a tremendous business out there during the time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember how much popcorn was a box?
MR. BELL: Yeah, I remember the prices. It was 15 cents, 25 cents, and 35 cents. I remember the hotdogs were 25 cents. The hamburgers were 35 cents. The French fries were 35 cents. Candy was, like, a dime and 15 cents. Chilled dill pickles were 10 cents apiece. Those were the big pickles you used to get out. I can just see it in my mind today. If it was still there, I could probably go in there and start now.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What year would that’ve been?
MR. BELL: The reason I got the job was my brother Greg worked there before I did. And he said, “I got a younger brother.” So I came along. I worked there from probably 1970 through ’74.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did they still have the bench and the mic up front so you could get out and go up there if you wanted to and listen?
MR. BELL: Yeah, they did have a mic set by the projection booth. Auberdale [Inaudible] ran the projection. Mr. Simcox had run it before. And he retired. And Auberdale came from Virginia. Auberdale was a funny-type fella. Everybody’s going to remember Auberdale during that time – from a very rural country area in Pound, Virginia – is where he came from. He had an old Plymouth – probably in the ’60s – had them CB whips. He had two of them that tied down. And a funny story about it – he was called the Sarsaparilla Kid. And I had an old Corvair at that time. I was going to name myself the Corvair Kid. He came in the concession stand out there from the booth – he was a big, old heavyset guy. We called him heavy sometime. He told me, “You can’t be the Corvair Kid. It sounds like a western. You’re going to have to change it to just Corvair. This town ain’t big enough for two kids.” I get a laugh outta that. Me and Auberdale had a love/hate feud, I guess you could say. He was always picking on me. I was little then. I’m bigger now. But I was a little guy. And he was big. And Auberdale would pick on me. He’d come in there and say something. He started something with me one night. I told him to leave me alone. And I told Roy, the owner, I said, “You got to tell him to leave me alone. I’m tired of him coming in there messing with me.” I said, “I’m going to pop him if he keeps on. I’m not going to take it no more.” He probably could’ve killed me – like he’s huge. But he’s always doing something to me to get me fired up. That night he got me all fired up. And I reached over the counter and I popped him one and knocked his partial loose. He said I was going to have to pay for it. And Roy said, “No, you started it, Auberdale.” We were best friends the next day. He was older than I was. It was a neat thing. I remember Roy, the owner – another funny story – if it was real slow like on a Sunday night, we had a little TV that we watched. And you could look out and see the movie through a big window, but you couldn’t hear it. So most the time we’d watch this TV. But it’d get real slow some Sunday nights. He’d maybe just have me in there working. He’d send me on home. If a real pretty girl walked in there – now, any other time, I’d have to get up and wait on them. But if a real pretty girl walked in, he’d look over to me, and he’d say, “I’ll handle this one, Donald.” And he’d go wait on the girl. He said, “That’s a healthy child, Donald. That’s a healthy child.”
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ever attend the Oak Ridge swimming pool? Did you ever go there much?
MR. BELL: I did go to the pool. I don’t think I went as much there as some people did. I took swimming lessons there. It’d be cold early in the morning – that water. I remember taking swimming lessons. And we did go down there. You rented the tubes right there. You had the – Ralph’s Place – it was called during that time. You’d rent tubes. And you got to go out there and swim to the raft and everything. That’s where I learned to swim. They had the lessons in the morning.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about some other places like the bowling lanes or the skating rink?
MR. BELL: Yeah, I didn’t go to the skating rink. We had a skating rink on the west end of Oak Ridge. My favorite things was Funland downtown – in my early years. They had the Ferris wheel and the swings. I can remember going down there talking to the guy. If I didn’t have money, they’d let me ride and stuff. I’d do something for them – maybe pick up paper or something. But I can remember going up on the Ferris wheel and smelling them donuts cooking down there – how good the donuts smelled from that Federal Bakery down there. They were smelling so good. I remember going down there. And Freddie, the blind guy with the tin cup playing the guitar. I’d drop a nickel in his cup. And he’d play you a song. I remember going and popping the balloons for a banana split in the Woolworth’s and McCrory’s. The balloons had a price in there – it’d be from a nickel to 35 cents. You popped that balloon; you got that banana split for that price.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That Funland was located between – was it Penney’s?
MR. BELL: Funland actually changed. When I left Oak Ridge – I got pictures of it – where Woolworth’s was, it was an open spot because they were coming. But they hadn’t come. So that was Funland. Later on, Funland moved up in the corner where Proffitt’s – where it was open – next to the Kohl’s there. That was Funland then – mainly right there’s where I remember the most it being. Of course, the bat-bat – Squeaky had the bat-bat down there on the end where Comfort Inn is now. We’d go down and try to hit balls in the batting cages. You had to first Putt-Putt Adam – Mr. Boringer owned, and it was where the Firestone was. And that was in the early years. He had the windmill and everything. And it was painted green. Of course, when Putt-Putt opened up, it was behind where the Krystal is. It kind of put Adam outta business. And that’s where we had our tournaments and played Putt-Putt. That was another thing – every kid played Putt-Putt. We loved it. The story behind it was that we were riding our bicycle down through there one day. And I was coming to play at a tournament on Saturday. Sometimes he’d have a Saturday tournament. It was that same Schwinn bicycle – we had our own putters. We thought we were cool ’cause we’d buy this special bladed putter and white ball. I’d normally put my putter up on top that handlebar and let it go out. I was beside St. Mary’s church on that sidewalk, riding my bike. Somehow, my putter got caught down there in them wheels – in the front wheel. It flipped me – if I’d landed on that sidewalk, it’d probably killed me. But it flipped my bicycle three times. And I landed over there in the grass. It seemed like a mile away. I landed there. I was hurt. I went over and told Charlie. I said, “Man, I’m hurting bad. I don’t think I can play like this.” Luckily, it didn’t do anything much to my bicycle. But it tore that putter all to pieces. I remember being mad about my putter getting tore up.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was the Rabbit Drive-In there when you – [Da-Rabbit Drive-In]
MR. BELL: It was when I was a real little boy – like I said, living down on Tucker. I remember my mother, of course, taking me Downtown. And we’d stop at Rabbit. What I mainly remember the most about it was that blinking rabbit up there – you know – blinking. I knew later on that it was a teenage hangout. I talked to a lot a people about it. I remember the rabbit. And I remember going in there getting hamburgers. My mother would pull up to the curb. And we’d get burgers and stuff there. Later on, I remember it changed into – like the Downtown Dairy Queen and the Rural Kitchen, and the Pig and Pup. It had a lot a names until Wendy’s come and bought that. And they tore it down. I definitely remember that. I remember the bowling alley. If you came down the Turnpike – look up there – in my mother and dad’s car. And I’d see the rabbit sign. I’d see that big bowling – all it said was bowling up on top of [Inaudible] Lanes in big, old bright letters. I remember that real well, too.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you were in high school, did you date very much?
MR. BELL: I did some my later years. Like I said, my junior high girlfriend that I really liked had moved off. I didn’t date in the first year, second year. I did date some in my senior year. Me working on weekends at the drive-in, I think I was focused a lot on that. My dating time came mainly right after I graduated high school. I started dating girls then – a little bit younger than I was. People don’t realize that a lot of the Oak Ridge girls – during my time – liked to date people outside of Oak Ridge. If you dated, you seemed like you didn’t date some of the girls at the school. You might date from Clinton or from Karns or from Oliver Springs – around. I can say during that time, I was a football manager for the Oak Ridge – small – I ended up being a manager for the high school team. I got into sports a little bit – being around sports – like I said, working at the Drive-In. So I probably didn’t have as much time for that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What’d you notice the difference was when you went from Jefferson to the high school?
MR. BELL: Your world opened up more. It was a lot like leaving elementary – almost like a step a leaving elementary and going to junior high. And going to high school, the freedom was just so much more – like I say, very liberal when I went. Dr. [Inaudible] was principal my first two years. And Mr. Bordinger was principal in my last year. We got to go out to lunch. We got to do a lot a things – that, necessarily, was probably not good in my early years. I was pretty immature during that time. I was not as grownup and did do some things that if I look back – my brother that had graduated college had a 1962 Impala. And I was just getting my license. Daddy gave me that car to drive – you know – it wasn’t necessarily mine. But I could drive it. I got my permit. He told me, you can drive it to school, Don. But don’t let nobody else drive it. Or maybe he didn’t say that – but drive it to school and drive it back home, that’s all. Well, during that time, this guy had a license. I thought he was more experienced. So I said, “Let’s go out to lunch.” We took the car out and had three girls in the back. We were riding down to McDonald’s. He was kind of showing off as he turned back into the curb right there toward Providence Road off Robertsville. This was my sophomore year. I was probably 16 years old. Well, he didn’t make that curve. And he flipped that car down an embankment over toward the swimming pool. I went halfway through the windshield and had a concussion and my head ripped open. Been going much faster, I probably wouldn’t be here today. A girl got hurt in the back. It totaled the car. If it’d been a small car, I wouldn’t be sitting here today. After that, they came and got my parents. Somebody was on a motorcycle and went and told my mother – she was working at Four Oaks Fashions – that I’d been in a bad wreck. They came over there. People thought maybe I was dead ’cause there was just blood everywhere. A guy came by in an ambulance real quick. I was kind of going hysterical. I was looking at that car – putting a pressure pack on my head and got us to the hospital. I wasn’t as bad as what it looked like. It didn’t do any damage as far as internal damage. But it could’ve been really bad. So I was a little bit fearful to drive after that. And I hadn’t even driven. He drove the car. I was able to get a little Corvair after that and drive. That’s another lesson that was a hard lesson to learn – is you don’t do things at that age – I was probably not – he give me the responsibility, but I didn’t do it right. And I learned. And I’ve never had a wreck since that day ’cause I try to be as careful as I can driving. But that was a hard lesson to learn. And I lost some people after graduation that got killed in car wrecks. And I miss them today. They did some things they shouldn’t have done. And I could be one of those statistics right now.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was the dress like? How did boys wear their hair in those days?
MR. BELL: We pulled it over and kind of long. I wore mine in some Beatle cut. Some people wore it way long – like girls had hair – but most of us just a little bit long. We wore fruit loops in the back. We’d wear cut-off jeans and fray all the bottoms and wear Converse All Star tennis shoes – that was a big thing, colored Converse All Stars. I always just wore an old T-shirt. My mother was into fashions. And she’d go to Sturm’s Youth World and buy me really nice clothes. I wouldn’t ever wear them. She used to say, “You’re wearing rags to school.” But I wasn’t into clothes. I was more into just having a good time. They wanted you to dress. Dress at that time kind of faded away. During my time, it was really, really into the time you just kind of did your own thing. High school could be a little bit cliquish, too. I never really fit into any one group. I got along with people well. But you had your real popular kids that hung out in the lobby. That’s where they hung out in the morning, and they’d socialize. Your black students seemed to hang out in front of the auditorium. The hoods hung out by the bridge as you come into the cafeteria. You had your hippyish – flower children, we called them. And they hung out there by the E building on the hill. They’d set in those set-ins out there. Then you had your jocks. I don’t think we even called them jocks then – boring people that hung around sports. I was too little to be too much of a sports-type. But I loved sports. I hung around more of the gym. And I hung around those people more. But I mixed in with all of them. I just never fit into one group like some people did. It was cliquish. We had almost 560-something people in my graduating class – 1700 students there. It was during the peak of Oak Ridge. I think 1970 was the largest graduating class. They almost hit 600. I don’t think we’ve ever hit 600, but it was close. I just remember going to classes. I loved going to shop class; that was my favorite – electricity shop with Mr. Brown, Charlie Carnes for woodworking. I had Mr. Hamby for art, Mr. Grossman for art. I seemed to stay down there in the D building a lot. That was the D building where they had industrial arts classes. I had Miss Kinneman for vocational reading. She was the kind of teacher – you could tell her you didn’t want a test and just say okay, we don’t have to have one. Looking back, I wish that I had probably studied harder because my thing was just enjoying school. I enjoyed the people. I did real good art and industrial art. But I was not a studier. I’m not sure I even took a book home. If I did, I probably didn’t read it. And I passed. But if I had to go back to that time today as an adult, I would’ve applied myself a lot more. But in some ways, it seemed that I took in more the way that I was. I have vivid memories of stuff. My time going to Blankenship field being a manager – going down – they didn’t have communication on the sidelines to the press box. We had to take wires going all the way to the press box on sticks and go up there where they could talk to each other on the telex in that old press box. I remember John Taylor. He was a football player. He got hurt real bad. And he was kind of a manager, too. And he had an old Jeep. All of a sudden, we took up at the side of that hill in that Jeep. And I was just praying that he don’t turn that thing over. Mine was loving Emory Hale – a coach, Coach Brewster and all the coaches – I just enjoyed that time so much. I remember that we got our letter jackets. And I pulled my little Corvair in next to the gym up there. I had some Puma shoes that they had bought me. And you’re supposed to turn them in. I guess I was going to try to keep them. Coach Brewster come out. He said, “Don, you turn in your shoes yet?” We got the letter jackets in.” I said, “I’ll get them for you right now.” I wanted that letter jacket. But I had to turn them shoes in.
MR. HUNNICUTT: There was something that Mr. Brown could do that most people probably wouldn’t be able to do. Do you remember what that was?
MR. BELL: I remember coming to the door; he’d shock you when you’d hit the door up – where he’d shock you. He’d rig the door up where you opened the door, and it’d shock you. I remember that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: He had a printing class as well as electricity when I went to school. He could stand and raise his foot up and touch the top of the door case.
MR. BELL: I didn’t know that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: He sure did. He was very flexible. And he’s a fairly tall man.
MR. BELL: Oh, he was.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Very gentle man, too.
MR. BELL: Everybody loved Fred Brown.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Mr. Carnes was a unique teacher when I had him. He probably still was when you had him. Do you recall what he used to call you? Maybe he quit doing that when you got into his class.
MR. BELL: He’d call some people knuckleheads or something. I don’t remember, exactly. But he was a funny-type fella.
MR. HUNNICUTT: He called us cowboys.
MR. BELL: I don’t know if he did that. But I remember one time – this wasn’t nice of this student that did this. One student during the morning class – you know you had a piece of plank wood – you’d kind of lock up when you leave. Somebody locked Charlie up in first period – locked him up. And I don’t know if they let him out ’till about the fifth period – and locked him up in there all day. I remember in that class somebody getting their finger cut off on one of those band saws – nearly cut off. He made it fun. Charlie was always a cut-up-type.
MR. HUNNICUTT: He had machine shop as well as woodworking. And he was good at what he did. Tell me a little bit about Emory Hale at halftime and some of the things that he used to do that you could remember.
MR. BELL: Well, I remember, vividly, one thing. In my year, we were not very good at football. This is his early years. He came in ’69 and left in ’80. We were 5 and 5 in 1972. That’s my junior year. We had a lot a good players. But they were – had Bobbie Winkel that went on to play for the Jets and had Danny Sanders. He was a national Frisbee champion and also played for the Jets a little bit. Our senior year, we were really good. We went over and played Central at Neyland Stadium and came back here. And Baylor beat us in the playoffs at Blankenship. I remember Clinton beating us over in Clinton my junior year. He’d always kind of pray before the games. But at halftime at the Clinton game, it scared me. Brewster took Winkel and pushed him up against the thing. I mean, they were reaming him out. They said Clinton is not going to beat us. Emory was very vocal. He ate football up. He lived it. He breathed it. I’ve interviewed him. And Emory said that his time at Oak Ridge is between the high school, his house, and Central Baptist Church. He lived it and breathed it. He did everything he could. He was the motivator. He would motivate you to the point where you thought you could take on any team there was. I remember talking to him later on about playing. I think it was Jackson/Central Mary and playing for the state. And he’d took them down there to play the state. The coach walked out and talked to him and said, “Emory, you’ve got a young team this year. So next year will be your year.” And he walked back in there – and they were supposed to beat us bad. He walked back there and told the players, “Look, we might as well pack up right now and go back to the house. That coach says we’re completely beat. We don’t have any chance at all of winning this game.” He said, “I had them so fired up that they could’ve took on UT and come out there and beat them. We came out there like the Thirty-second Airborne Division – and said we just passed them up. That coach just looked me after the game was up. He built you up to where you thought you were – mentally, you were twice as good as what you did. He took a lot of physically smaller teams and beat bigger teams. He was just a motivator. And then you had – he’s one of the best defensive coordinators there was – Paul Brewster and Chic Rainey, later on, and Coach Buddy Fisher when I was there. He had some good coaches around him. But everybody had their job. Everybody had a specific job. And even me being the manager for the team – it wasn’t like you were a water boy. You had specific things you did. I remember running the lines. We’d have to make sure that they had certain kind of shoes. He had us doing things that we were not allowed. When we were heading out on the bus, we were not allowed to talk on the bus. I got in trouble over that. They’d make you stay on the bus. You didn’t even get to play if you talked at all going somewhere – like we went to [Inaudible]. I remember playing Chattanooga City and Emory losing that game. And he bought us brand-new shirts. We were wearing them on the sideline. It started raining. And he had them hit like a bunch a hogs, and mud just splattered up and covered us in mud and ruined our shirts. He was a fired-up person.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Is it true that he used to throw up before games; he’d be so nervous?
MR. BELL: He was so nervous. He did that quite often. We wouldn’t necessarily see him. He’d go behind the buses and everything – he’d be so nervous. He was high-strung – I say he shouldn’t of took it as serious as he did. He took it serious. But he almost took it to a point where it might not be healthy.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Let’s go back a moment. Describe for me what the Downtown area looked like in the day when it was operating.
MR. BELL: Every store was busy. Even through the week – I mean, there was always cars. It was flourishing – people walking, especially Saturday night. Maybe they were sitting on benches or something. Everybody went to Downtown. All the shops – you had your McCrory’s, and Woolworth, and your Penney’s, your Penney’s annex, Bailoff’s men’s shop. We had one shop when I was in high schools called Oops. It was Levi shop that sold second Levi’s that were down there. Women had Paris Hats down there. You had Mumford’s woodworking place. You had the Cheese Crock – forgot what that other was called next to it. You had some restaurants down there. It was always just so busy. It was the center of Oak Ridge and just really buys and people doing their shopping and socializing. It was beautiful at Christmas. They decorated it really pretty. You had your Santa Claus place up at the end – just a place that you’d never thought would’ve gone away.
MR. HUNNICUTT: All the stores were open-front stores, right.
MR. BELL: Right, and you had a little hangover that you walked around.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When they put the mall in, that was the times. But it kind of fell on its face.
MR. BELL: They had the war kind of between Crown. And Crown started building out in Emory Valley. He told them Oak Ridge demographically might not have worked – that he would remodel the shopping center and kind of front it. Looking back, I think if they just put glass over the front where you could still walk around in the winter – that you could still go into the stores and gave it a good facelift, I think it would still be going today. I think the malls were a thing that we wanted. But I think that when they built that, it caused the rent to go up. And people couldn’t stay there. They also couldn’t take the fact that you had to go through two or three years – you had to move out. And you’d have to move back in because – you know – a lot of businesses just went completely out ’cause they couldn’t take that two-year period of change.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, west Knoxville had a mall.
MR. BELL: And it was close by, too.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What year did you graduate?
MR. BELL: I graduated in 1974.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you do after you graduated?
MR. BELL: I got a job first working at Western Sizzling Steakhouse in 1975.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was that located?
MR. BELL: I went to [Inaudible] State for a little while. And I didn’t like college. I tried that. It didn’t work for me. I was working at a little club here in Oak Ridge called the CLU Club. And I was just taking up money at the door and cleaning up during the day. I was still living at home. And a guy walked in there and said, “We’re building a Western Sizzling.” He said, “I’ve watched you. You’re a good worker. I’m going to hire you when that opens up.” And I thought maybe he will, maybe he won’t. I went down there. And they hired me. I became a cook and a nightshift manager and went up to Morristown to train to learn how to cook steaks. We had 17 different steaks at that time. And I never cooked except for working at the Drive-In and concession stand. I looked at him and said, “Well, what am I going to be? A bus boy? Dishwasher? What am I going to be?” He said, “You’re going to be a head cook.” I’m thinking I ain’t never cooked. So he sent me to Morristown to train. I just went up there for three days. Well, it was confusing, for one thing. You had to learn all those steaks by numbers to cook. I went back to Oak Ridge. I don’t think I did very well at it. I didn’t know this. But they called Bill McCoy and said, “You better put that boy on something else. He’ll never make it as a cook.” Well, Bill was a smart guy – another guy I worked for that I really appreciate as a manager. He was a great manager. He was like Emory Hale in motivation. He knew how to motivate. But he walked up to me. And he said, “They’ve called Junior Macon outta’ Morristown. You’re not going to make it as a cook. You ain’t got what it takes.” When they said that to me, that was my motivation right there. He says, “I ain’t going to make it.” I’m going to do whatever it takes. So I had to devise a way to be able to cook when all those people started rush – you got to remember, we didn’t have many restaurants here at that time, especially a place like that. I came up with the idea that – 17 different steaks – I just took tags and put them on every steak. They would be in the cooler behind me. And I would number what that steak was. Like a No. 1’s a small sirloin. A No. 2’s a club steak. And I’d number them so that when the numbers come up on there, and I had to put them on the grill what the steak was – you couldn’t say gun smoke because it was a No. 9. Once I learned it – once they come in, you’re only ordering about six of them all the time. You’re going to learn them. Within two weeks, we had them lined out the door every night. Well, it didn’t take me no time. I learned. I didn’t have to have those tags no more. I ended up being the fastest – the best cook. They took me to openings throughout the whole South – opening five or six steakhouses. I told Paducah – I was up there working. I told Bill McCoy, “Junior Macon called. Tell him I’ll take him on cooking any time. Tell him I made it.” I made it. We did well. I worked for Western Sizzling for about a year. And I went and helped open one in Morristown and worked up there at another steakhouse that Charlie Paynor was opening. Then I made a decision. And I really didn’t want to because I liked in working in those. But I also knew that it didn’t offer many benefits. And it was a young man’s job. I wouldn’t be able to do that my whole life or probably wouldn’t want to. My dad knew Clyde Hopkins from Y-12. He called up there and basically got me a job working in Paducah. I worked up there and worked in the gas diffusion plant in Paducah for one year as a custodian. We used to sweep out big process buildings. They called the bull gang. And you’d be real hot. And you’d have to sweep out these buildings – threw out sawdust. It’d take you an hour to go from one end to the other with about a 54-inch dust mop. You sweated. It was hard work every day. And I kind of liked it. But three months into that – the supervisor liked me a lot. He was a black supervisor named Mr. Thomas. He called me and said, “Bell, you’re off the bull gang. You’re going to be taking the men to the buildings every day and dropping them off and doing errands for me. You and Mr. Hollis will be my lead men.” I really enjoyed that. We got to pull into the cafeteria and eat during lunch and take the men to the building and everything. But one day during the wintertime – it was real cold. It snowed heavy up there. It’s real cold. It’s on the Ohio River. He said, “Bell, you’re driving.” I was always sitting in the passenger side. He said, “You’re in charge of taking the men to the building and everything today.” There’s another guy named Ashford – black guy from Oak Ridge. He was with us up there. And I said, “Ash, drive, I’m scared.” I told him I was scared to drive. I said, “I’m going to wreck this thing.” I got back that day. And Thomas found out that I let Ashford drive the van. He said, “Bell, I told you to drive it. He’s done wreck three lawnmowers. That’s why he’s over here at [inaudible].” He said, “I told you to drive.” I was still scared. We became good friends. I stayed there for a year. And they gave me a big party. He basically had a tear in his eye when I left. I didn’t really want to leave there ’cause I liked it. But I wanted to come over to Oak Ridge. Oak Ridge was my hometown. I told him one time, “If I ever get back to Oak Ridge, I’ll never leave again.” I talked to him sometimes even today and talk about how much I miss my hometown. I was probably homesick. I had never been away from home. Then I came back to Y-12 and got a job working the big shop for probably about five years. And I was on shift work. I was on two-shift rotation. And I’ll just be honest. I never really liked that job. I never enjoyed it much. It was in a machine shop. And I’d see older machinists on their machines. And I was a cleaner. I’d clean in the machine shop. But I didn’t like the shift rotation. And I really didn’t like it. It was dark in there. It wasn’t a good fit for me. I was making really good money. I had great benefits. But I wasn’t happy. Well, I’d gotten married during that and went through a divorce. That kind of set it in. I didn’t like my job. I’d gone through a divorce. I just basically quit. My dad, needless to say, was very disappointed in me for quitting a job that I guess most people would give their eyeteeth for. If I’d not gone through a divorce, I might not have quit that job. I probably wouldn’t. I may still be out there today. But somehow, things work out for us. And I ended up – the only time that I drew unemployment in my whole life was six months. They were building Physicians Plaza in 1984. And I said, well, I’ve got to have a job. I’ve left a good job. I’m going to have to have a job. So I went up to Physicians Plaza and got a custodial position – and was making just part-time. Within three months, I was over everybody there. I was over the whole building. I was making better money. I transferred over to the hospital. We got the contract. I was working for a contractor. I stayed up at Physicians Plaza and became friends with a lot a doctors – really enjoyed it ’cause I was pretty much my own boss. I hired, fired – did everything. But they had posted a school job in 1989 for head custodian at Glenwood Elementary school. And I said, “I’ve got a good resume”. I’m back on my feet again. I put in for the job and got the position of head custodian at Glenwood and worked there from ’90 to 2013 and enjoyed it tremendously. I worked for some great people. Howie Irwin was my first principal. And he’d grown up on Georgia Avenue. He paralleled my life. He did things I did many years earlier. I worked for Roger Toler for six years and Miss Goins for seven or eight years. And I had hired in with her. She was a teacher then. I sat on numerous boards. I was on the credit union board. I was on the search committee to elect the principal at Glenwood when Miss Goins there. It worked out really good for me. I was a lot better fit where I ended up than working at the plant. I’m not so sure that the plants – the fact that my dad was a supervisor and been in supervisory positions, there was a little bit of a stigma attached to what I was doing in comparison to what my father was doing. I think the Lord has a reason for where we end up and what we do. It ended up working out good for me.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me what you know about the Snow White Drive-In.
MR. BELL: Well, Snow White was one of my favorite places as a young teenager. I would say that Snow White and Burl Morgan’s Diner were my two favorite ’cause they were within walking distance of where I lived. I remember going into the Snow White. They had a cook there named Tom Reaves – older gentleman, real nice – always wore like a [inaudible] hat – one of those kitchen-type cap. I’d go in. And they’d be hollering, “Three on a meatloaf. One of the chicken and dumpling. Give me two on the ham, Tom.” They’d always holler out their food. I always wondered why they hollered it out. And I found later on that it’d been a teenage hangout. And when they went through the door, the curb girls would holler out when they walked in the door. So they kept that concept even after it was a family restaurant. I kind of knew Tom pretty well and got close to him. I’d go sit at the counter. And he could wait on me. He’d say, “What’d you need, young man?” And I’d tell him what I wanted. He’d just hand it behind him and still wait – simultaneously, he’d wait on the waitresses, too. He could fill in orders like – and I studied Tom later on and found out he had worked in the CCC camps during the war – you know – Roosevelt started the CCC camps. And he learned how to hone his skills and sling hash during that time. He was really an excellent person for that. He never drove. I found out he rode the bus – a Trailways bus to Oak Ridge from Knoxville and then walked across the Turnpike. The Sparks family – that later on I worked with Bill – had opened the Snow White. They owned other drive-ins throughout – they owned the Edgewood Steakhouse out at the end of Oak Ridge. They owned the Door on Clinton Highway and, I think, the Waldorf up in Gatlinburg. They owned a bunch of different restaurants. John Sparks, the oldest brother, was the original owner and then Bill. It was a neat place – down where Physicians Plaza was – big old, long counter down through there. Herb Sparks ran the grill – the other brother. He had tables sitting in front with big glass and everything – real cheap to eat there and pretty good food. I thought it was just kind of a neat place. I wish there was more places like that today.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You have a picture of Peacock Lodge before the Snow White.
MR. BELL: Yeah, I have a picture.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me a little history of what you know about that.
MR. BELL: Yeah, I have a picture. This is the Peacock Lodge. That’s what it opened up to – in probably early ’40s or ’43 or so. There’s an old car sitting out front of it. I think it’s kind of neat. It says Chicken in a Row up there at the top. This stayed that way for numerous years. Later on, the Peacock Lodge sold to Blue Circle. And I believe that it stayed the Blue Circle for a couple years ’til Blue Circle built across the street. And then it became the Snow White. I believe it was added on to – another building was added on – an insurance company or something. So these windows still remained. And it was longer when I was a kid. But that’s a picture of the old Snow White – just a neat place. And I’ve got another picture where I did an article. And there’s Tom Reaves cooking right behind the counter. This is when I wrote about all the old restaurants in Oak Ridge that we had – of course, Snow White probably being the most famous.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You have some other articles that you wrote a few years ago. What were they?
MR. BELL: I probably did 20 different articles. This is a picture remembering our old school days. And there’s Fred Brown that we talked about earlier – right there as a teacher – one of my favorite teachers. And this is basically an article about what we all remember about our school days. I talked to people from the early ’50s – all the way up to present about their time at the school. They were quite a bit different. But we all had some of the same memories. Then I have one about – this is called “Townsite and the Teenager” – about Jackson Square and the stories about the old Jackson Square and the Center Theater and the old bowling alley that used to sit up there – the Jackson Square and Taft Moody. That wasn’t there when I was a kid. That was right there where Jackson Square Pharmacy is now. And Dean’s Restaurant’s in there. And what’s interesting is – I don’t know if we can get that – that stack that goes up right there – when they started remodeling for Dean’s Restaurant, they took down the false ceiling tiles. And we found where that stack had been covered up after all these years. I thought that was a neat piece a history about Jackson Square.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Taft Moody ice cream was actually next door to Williams Drugstore. When Mr. McMahon bought the drugstore, it was a little malt shop for a while that expanded over into the –
MR. BELL: I think they did the remodel in ’65. Mr. McMahon said restaurant really wasn’t his thing. So he went ahead and just opened a gift shop in there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What’s the other photograph you’ve got of the little ice cream place?
MR. BELL: I don’t necessarily remember this. But I’ve talked to a lady I worked with. This was called the Igloo. And it was down somewhere – from where she remembered it – somewhere around where Mr. Gatti’s was – close in there where –
MR. HUNNICUTT: Downtown market area –
MR. BELL: Yeah, right in that area. This must be where the farmers market is. I remember seeing this. And I blew this up – where it says Oak Ridge football schedule. And I believe that’s about 1952 or ’53 – that schedule in the window. I do know what happened to this. When Oak Ridge – they started building Downtown in ’55, the person that owned this put it on a trailer and moved it up to Lafollette for a number of years. Loretta Mustin worked in here. And I’ve talked to her about the Igloo.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember where Lizz’s Market used to be there in the municipal building? The farmers market was right there close to that.
MR. BELL: Where would that be exactly today?
MR. HUNNICUTT: Right behind CVS Pharmacy and Long John’s – right in that area.
MR. BELL: She said she remembered seeing the Catholic Church. I think right here’s pretty interesting if I’ve got this – I found this the other day. It’s interesting. Oak Ridge won their first football championship in 1975 under the TSSAA. We had already won ’56, ’58, ’62,’61. But those were mythical champions. Under the official – even this right here in 1975 – we ended up playing Maplewood, which was Maplewood High School outta Nashville. And I went to that game. Of course, it was real cold – on Thanksgiving. But there’s two players that we played against. Emory ran the [inaudible], which didn’t feature one player. It featured small. They were dominant. But two players off of this team – E.J. Junior played for Alabama off a Maplewood. And there’s another guy up here – if I can remember – Preston Brown went on to play – I think he played pro ball, didn’t he? I believe he went on to the pros. We played against a team that was supposed to be – their record coming in was just unbelievable. We beat them pretty hands down for our first real state championship. I thought that was pretty interesting. And what I like about this is it lists everybody from the team. And I’ve got these from 1979 and ’80 championships for every team that participated in the TSSAA, which is kind of interesting. Clifford Smith that worked for the schools as a – he also worked at the credit union. You might know Clifford.
MR. HUNNICUTT: He was my art teacher.
MR. BELL: He was art teacher with Mr. Hamby. He’s a great artist. I didn’t never even think I was going to do a book. So what I did is I took a compilation of all the articles that I did. And we put it in book form. But I came up with the idea that me on that Schwinn bicycle as a kid, traveling throughout all of the places that I went as a kid. And he did a great job on that cover. Of course, you got the Oak Terrace, the Putt-Putt, the Snow White, [inaudible] football – old service road where Big Ed’s was – I used to go to that counter. And Jessie would fix me a bowl a chili and a cherry smash and a grilled cheese. You had your Morgan’s Diner. And [Inaudible] was still here. But it’s kind of neat. He did Skyway Drive-In, the Ridge, and the Blue Circle.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell us where Morgan’s Diner is today.
MR. BELL: Morgan’s Diner is a Chinese restaurant now. I think Betty’s her name – Magic Wok, I believe what’s they call that. Research on that – it was attached to the old Winder Building in Oak Ridge. It started out as Eric’s Diner. Well, Burl and Doc Morgan bought it from them. They also owned the Downtown Cab Company, too. That’s another job I guess I left out. I was probably the youngest cab driver in Oak Ridge. But I would go down – and most people young like me really wouldn’t go to places like that. It wasn’t a kid place. I’d go down – I probably had a car then. I think I just started driving. Burl would say, “Let me fix you a honey bun, son.” And he’d take the honey bun and put a little butter and put it on the grill for me – make me a hamburger. We got to be really good friends. I’d sit there and talk to him. He was just open during lunch and breakfast and close, and then he’d go drive a cab. He said, “You want to drive a cab.” I said, “Drive a cab. I’m a senior in high school. I said, “I’m working down at the drive-in.” He said, “Well you go down there and take your special chauffeur license, you can drive a cab.” I ended up driving a cab my senior year, part-time – you know – picking people up and taking them. I kind of enjoyed it. I still lived at home. We traded on nights. They had the flea market downtown then during Saturday. It was kind of another fun thing I did. I always liked Burl. Burl was a neat guy. I have fond memories of him. There was another guy that owned the cab company with him, too, named Wayne Paul. He was from Lake City. All these cab drivers had been former Oak Ridge bus drivers years ago – Ray Kirby and a bunch of them – Mr. Mashburn – I guess you remember him – Bud Mashburn. So they were down there. And I’m just a little boy. I was always scared of Wayne Paul. He was a big, old strong man. He was burly. He’d say mean things – or I thought they were. What’s funny about that is we’d set down there in the cars when we wasn’t driving. He really got to liking me a lot. We became close to him. I remember he said, “Come on with me.” And he’d take me inside in the Davis Brothers cafeteria. He’d push my tray through there. He got free food for advertising. He said, “He’s part a me.” He started buying my meals and stuff. By doing the cab driving, I got to know another guy down there that owned the old hardware store down there, R.B. Weymond. I got to trade some knives and stuff with him. R.B. was a fixture. Everybody in town knew R.B. I kind of got to grow up with these people. The diner down there today is a neat little place. They probably don’t seat over 20 people in there. But I’m glad it’s still here. I’m glad somebody’s got it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, it sure sounds like you’ve had a wonderful life here in Oak Ridge. I certainly thank you for letting me interview you. This interview will be a real pleasure for somebody to look at and know how Oak Ridge was in the ’60s and the ’70s.in town. Thank you very much for your time.
MR. BELL: Thank you so much. I enjoyed it.
[End of Interview]